#can you tell i love s1 varian the most | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

manic-pixie-dream-dude · 2 years

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GIVE ME ALL YOUR VARIPUNZEL THOUGHTS!!! THEY NEED META!!

THEY REALLY DO!!! THEY REALLY REALLY DO!! I tried my best to sort out my thoughts into something that could at least be called coherent but uh. It got super long lmao, so! please enjoy: Varian, Rapunzel, and the insanity they sparked within me

Individually:

To start, these two are my favorite charas in the entire series. The other characters I enjoy the most when they're interacting with each other but Var and Raps are fun even on their own, or just when they're talking to their Animal Sidekick.

Varian is such a good character and you can tell by how he shines even though he only appears in 3 episodes of S1. ONLY THREE. He's a delight to have onscreen, and he's got so much depth as a kid who's done nothing but fail yet still remains optimistic and resilient through it all. His development into the antagonist is very natural, being as he's only ever had his dad as his family and was avoided by everyone else, you can't help but sympathize and root for him. His personality is just… dorky little shit who’s well-meaning but just the slightest bit unhinged. I love him lots. His skepticism about magic is funny (and a nice contrast to Rapunzel's usually magical view of the world) but I like to think that, because of Rapunzel, he eventually does believe in it.

As for Rapunzel, I adore what they did with her character. Fleshed her out and gave her flaws that made her so human. Obviously, the "princess stressed about her role" trope isn't anything new but the way it's tackled here is great! She's only been out of that tower for several months and immediately thrown into duties and expectations all at once but still hangs on to her sense of wonder and curiosity, much like Varian.

Together:

from the first ep, I just found their interactions SO cute. They start off with Varian being so... LIKE THAT when he meets her, amazed and infatuated cus "WOAH THE PRINCESS IS HERE SHE SOUGHT ME OUT" and he's obviously trying to impress/seem cool. I love how Varian literally gets on one knee and exclaims "look at you!" to Rapunzel.

(and his fixation on her hair, being interested in its qualities and later using it as a sort of plushie, is insanely endearing).

And Raps was so excited and interested about his field of study, compared to how weary everyone is. The girl lets herself be strapped to the equivalent of a torture bench ffs.

They're both nerds! Rapunzel is shown to be super well-read and a dork in her own right, (usually being an art nerd while Varian is a science nerd) and I can so easily imagine them rambling to each other and sharing their interests.

It’s really cute how Varian matches her energy and almost juvenile excitement/optimism/persistence about everything while still grounding her because of his personality, both when he's just her friend and when he's her enemy.

Even in their later interactions, I like how Varian still seems to care for her, until his anger and fear for his father wins over (I like the idea that the "I used you" line was more out of spur of the moment frustration rather than genuine malice.)

Their dynamic in general is insanely compelling to me with its potential, I do function on my own fanon chain of events but even canon gives us a lot of it, both when they're friends or enemies.

when he IS antagonistic, it's dramatic and heartbreaking and FUN. I like their banter in S1 the most but S3 as well, even if sometimes the writing for it is a bit meh lmao. Varian going all out on the whole villain thing makes way for endless entertainment, especially when he slips into Dork Mode in the middle of it.

What's more romantic than undergoing a corruption arc in tandem with the MC’s hero arc and having both your destinies tied to the point where your downfall is her becoming, and you're both set up to be a perpetual motion machine of chaos and balance?

I enjoy their rivalry more in S1 and their friendship more in S3, and I think I'm not alone given how their interactions have been gif'd to hell and back. After everything, they've obviously grown much closer.

All I'm saying is that Disney are cowards have missed their opportunity with these two.

Canon:

Some cute similarities I’ve found is that both get bonked on the head by their equipment, both have a knack for making Rube Goldberg machines, and both draw (and have drawn one another).

It's also so sweet how she always encourages him and her joy around him and his interests makes him bashful, like when she sees him at the science fair and goes "Hi, Varian!". It's so cute.

And there's also the entirety of The Alchemist Returns. This being one of Many favorite scenes:

something I personally found really 👀 about them is how Rapunzel KNEW what Varian's plan was. She knows how he thinks, and he prepared for it cus he knows how she thinks. This mutual understanding of each other's thought process is VERY Inch Resting, esp since that moment could’ve easily been written so Cass figured out his plans as a show for her strategic thinking but no! Raps knows him well and vice versa.

And If I may skip ahead a bit, There's also their relationship in S3. and Yknow, I'm actually not done watching S3 yet (I know, I know) but from what I've seen, the number of Fond Gazing scenes is delightful. Also, I'm forever thinking of this moment:

I'm sure there would be a lot to say about them in S3, and I might return to add my thoughts once I'm done w it, but for now...

Complaint (oh boy):

Rapunzel is, everything considered, the only person who's ever really respected him and is his friend. Varian only has his dad and her (and debatably Cass and Eugene, though in S1 they still seem to have a 'this is my friend's friend so I'll be nice to him' approach).

She doesn't use him or undermine his sorrow, she gets him. Which is why her dislike near the end was so. Confusing. She canonically values promises (to quote: "I never break my word. Ever.") so her having to actually break a promise, and to him, she'd surely understand and sympathize.

I personally find it… Odd. that her reaction was hatred. At first, at least. Raps is an empathetic person, her whole schtick is inspiring villains/criminals to reform. Seeing her friend in the process of becoming one and, for once, not knowing what she’s supposed to do or how, should’ve made her distraught and feeling helpless. I could see her tipping into anger during the automaton fight, where everything sort of snaps as it dawns on her that she can’t save everyone here by talking it out or being nice.

I wish their development nearing the s1 finale was based more on the pain of having to go against one another rather than anger. Varian has to save his one family member, Rapunzel has to be a princess (and I don't think it’d be a reach to say she’d go to similar lengths to save any of her loved ones, let alone her only loved one).

Also, I'm gonna bitch here for a second and say: you're telling me he was helping her figure out more about the rocks and we don't see a SINGLE scene of her sneaking out to study the rocks with him? Or any mention of them communicating afterward? I really wish we had more screentime with those two but since we didn't, I’ve chosen to believe that they did interact often in the 6-month duration of S1 and were good friends. [the whining of a harrowed shipper]

Another thing, It struck me how... Present, Varian was in her thoughts, even after S1. We didn't get to see much of him or their friendship but she obviously cared, that much was implied. Cared enough that his cries echoed in her nightmares even though, at that point, he hadn't shown any resentment towards her. He's her guilt and the reminder of her destiny, that she can’t stay as simply ‘Princess Rapunzel’. Because of him, for him, she becomes more.

Also, because of this noticeable presence, his subsequent absence is damn near palpable in S2. When I was watching, I was just wondering to myself if we’d see wanted posters for him sometime soon, if he’ll still manage to follow them, even if just in spirit. It’s why him appearing as her fear/sadness felt so right to me, I almost stood up and cheered

episodes after the storm, where Rapunzel doesn't think to check in or visit him herself, feel so SO out of character. This has been noted before, but there are times when the writing feels like it's fighting AGAINST the characters just to ensure the plot goes in a Specific Way even if it would make sense for it to go differently.

(Though It's beyond me why they had to have Raps get a note from Varian when THAT episode could've gone similarly if Raps went by her own volition.)

To me, if they allowed the characters to lead the plot based on their own internal logic, morals, etc, Varian and Rapunzel arcs would’ve been more involved with one another and we would've gotten a deeper bond than what we did get in canon. It’s why I also think it makes waaay more sense for Varian to have been seeking out the moonstone as well. He's connected to them in his own way!

AND WHILE WE'RE ON THE TOPIC

Moonstone Varian (oh boy part 2):

I’ll say this now and I’ll say it with my finger pointed up so everyone knows I mean it: Varian being the one to speak of her destiny while black rocks sprout around him in her dreams, being the only one to translate and understand the scroll piece, and his colors being LITERALLY CALLED MOONSTONE BLUE, the fact that Varian wasn't her "other half" or the Moonstone holder was BULL.

Moon Cass vs Moon Varian is a whole ramble of its own so I won't get into it too much (my thoughts could be summarized here and here). Just know, it should've happened. Their arcs should've been switched.

I mean… his design, man…. In s1 it’s a stark contrast to Rapunzel; blue and pink, dark and light, simple and intricate. Plus, him being the only one with Eccentric Hair besides Raps… C’MON MAN.

But the dream thing is what I’m really hung up on, it’s as if he's set up as knowing more, or at least trying to learn more. He's the first one shown to have a connection to the Dark Kingdom, he's the one who relates the rocks to Rapunzel and the Sundrop, it would've made so much sense if he broke out in s2 and followed the rocks as well.

They could've both had the same goal, making way for a slowburn enemies to rekindled friendship arc.

Keeping them separated when it would make sense to weave their arcs together was dissapointing. Disney knew they'd be too powerful 😔

TL;DR: They're an amazing pair with lotsa canon set up and had the potential to become something more but the writers did my boy Varian so dirty and I'm gonna be redirecting my bitterness about it into drawing them kissing. The End.

#tts #varipunzel #thank you for the ask! so sorry it took this long askljas #I didn't share much of my hcs/fanon interpretations but this was getting lenghty and my brain can only focus on text for so long #maybe another time!#🌞🧪#meta #mani.txt #mail? in MY chicken coop?

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rachelbethhines · 3 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - No Time Like the Past

While I wouldn’t call this the worst episode of the series, there are several others I dislike more, I would call this the most ill conceived story in the show.

All the other bad episodes have potential but are let down by poor presentation, boring predictability, or sloppy planning. This one however, is fundamentally flawed in it’s very basic premise and so ranks in the bottom of most fans lists. Even people who are far more forgiving of season three and than I am, and are hardcore New Dream stans, still dislike this episode. That’s how bad it is.

Summary: Rapunzel discovers Old Lady Crowley tossing out Cassandra's things. She is upset and demands that they be left alone. She then has Lance and Eugene help her save all of Cassandra's mementos and personal belongings, but she becomes saddened when Eugene reminds her that Cassandra turned her back on "her". Rapunzel takes a box of her things along with, unknowingly, a mysterious hourglass. As she examines it, she accidentally drops and smashes it and she and Pascal find themselves sent back into the past. They run into a teenage Eugene and Lance who keep calling Rapunzel "Sideburns". Rapunzel realizes that she and Pascal have inhabited the bodies of the Stabbington Brothers and decide to recruit the young thieves in getting the hourglass from the castle back.

Fun Fact! That Dummy is Rapunzel’s Doing

Minor nitpick here, but Cass had nothing to do with putting Eugene’s face on her sparring dummy. Rapunzel voluntarily did that back in Under Raps. Cas never requested it nor even expressed any joy over receiving said ‘gift’.

Basically the show is attributing one of Rapunzel’s mistakes/flaws to Cassandra in order to introduce a very nonsensical plot point later. So I need ya’ll to keep that in mind as we go along.

Lets Talk About the Episode’s Ordering

We don't have production codes for season three like we did for the previous two seasons. So we can’t know for sure what order everything was originally planned in, but I would argue that this episode should have came before Return of the King.

For starters this is a “bottle” episode; it takes place mostly in the past and the only present day characters who show up are Eugene, Raps, Lance, and Crowely. As such you could potentially slot this episode in anywhere before Cassandra’s Revenge. You can’t really do that with most of the other episodes so it could have been easily moved around when airing.

Therefore, I would argue that it should have been the first episode after Rapunzel’s Return for three key reasons.

It would have given Edmund time to travel to Corona and give Raps time to start up big building projects like fixing Old Corona. In fact she’s already approving building plans for the capitol city at the start of the episode. Which could even explain why she took so long getting to the castle repairs if she was taking care of the stuff that the Saporians messed up else where.

Rapunzel’s stance over wanting to keep Cassandra’s things makes more sense early on, both in universe and in a meta context. Raps would still have hope if Cass has only been gone for a month or two instead what would now be four or five months down the line. It also makes sense that Crowely wouldn’t wait around for that long. And from a meta standpoint, the audience would still be oblivious to what the heck Cass was up to and could theoretically side with Raps better; or at least empathize with her view point more, even while disagreeing with her.

Events in this episode better explains Eugene’s decisions in Return of the King and gives the audience more context for certain stuff.

So Why Is There a Random Magical Time Traveling Hourglass in the Storage Vault?

Slowly but surely the series has abandoned all pretense that there’s any logical world building in the show. Magical things just appear randomly now without any explanation whatsoever. Worse than that, things like the hourglass and map to the cursed tomb are treated as if they were always there, unlike the magical beings that they happened to run into in past seasons.

The problem with this is a lack of consistency. You can’t have sceptics like Eugene and Varian if magic is so common and wide spread that anyone can run into it at anytime. Not to mention it diminishes the specialness and importance of the sundrop and moonstone if powerful magical items can be so easily found and stirred, undermining important plot points and the tension surrounding them.

But most frustrating of all, is that this could have been easily fixed by just stating on screen at some point that magic attracts other magic. Meaning it’s only Rapunzel herself who routinely runs into these things and not just everybody and anybody.

None of This Stuff Holds Any Meaning

Show don’t tell!

At several points through out season three, both Raps and Cass morn over Cassandra’s left behind things. They tell us constantly that these objects hold significant meaning to them, but I, the viewer, have no damn clue as to why.

We were never shown on screen what was so special about these things other than the fact that it was junk Cass collected. There’s no story attacked to these assortment of objects nor any previous indication that Cassandra valued them beyond their usefulness. As such, any scenes involving her stuff fall emotionally flat.

Eugene is the One in the Right Here.

Eugene’s right.

Any well adjust and mature adult will tell you he’s right.

If someone doesn’t want a relationship with you, than that’s it. There is nothing you can do but to move on. It sucks, but its life. To ignore that is to ignore someone else’s boundaries and personal autonomy; while also devaluing yourself and you’re own needs.

In a competent show this would be a set up for Rapunzel to learn something about letting go and taking care of oneself emotionally.

But this isn’t a competent show.

But Lobster is for Poor Folk

Food history time!

Lobster, and shellfish in general, have been considered low class food for centuries. Especially around costal areas like Corona. It’s easy to attain, cheap, and not regulated like hunting was in much of Europe. In America, specifically, lobster was fed to prisoners and there’s historical accounts of riots being started over it.

Heck, less than forty years ago, no one lived on the coast but poor people. That’s why there’s historical communities of black people living on the southeastern islands in the US and why my father grew up in the swamps of Alabama during the 50s and 60s.

The gentrification of coastal property and seafood, like lobster, is a very recent phenomenon in human history, starting in the late 70s early 80s with the booming tourism industry and increasing globalization.

So while I understand that the joke here is meant to be reflective of our current understanding of lobster being a status symbol, in universe, it’s the equivalent of Eugene getting excited for chicken nuggets instead of his usual bowl of cereal because the story takes place before the 20th century.

This means that these kids are so poor that fucking mcdonald’s fast food would be considered a rare treat compared to the slop they usually eat. Yet again what is meant to be a lighthearted joke turns suddenly dark when you stop to think about it for all of two seconds all because the writers are so flippant about their world and characters.

This Wasn’t Planned Out, So the Timeline Doesn’t Add Up Anymore and Resources are Wasted

Remember the flashback in The Return of Strongbow?

Now I need you to remember that season three is two years later from season one and the movie. Eight years ago then, would be ten years ago now.

The Eugene and Lance in the bottom picture is suppose to be roughly the same age as the Eugene and Lance in the top picture; give or take a few months.

I know teenage boys can grow fast, but not that fast.

Eugene at 16 looks the same as he does at 26. All because the writers were too lazy to preplan things out ahead of time.

We should have seen the teen models with recasted voices back during that first flashback if they were going to tell this story later. Or the previous plot point should have been less than eight years ago.

In fact the first flashback no longer makes any sense being so many years ago given Eugene’s engagement and recent breakup with Stalyan, and the later reveal that he was working for the Baron during the original movie.

Sloppy planning like this not only makes for a confusing timeline but it also wastes limited resources. I like the new models, I like the actors cast for these younger roles, and I do like the concept of seeing more of Eugene’s past. But going through all of that trouble and money for what amounts to one throw away episode is mismanagement of the budget and work schedule.

Baby Varian Is the Episode’s Only Saving Grace

I know people are divided on the deign here. Some love it and some hate it, but that’s a personal taste thing. The actual scene itself is golden either way, because it’s such a funny eater egg. Fans on both sides made memes out of this for days. It’s legendary.

Personally I’m more in the ‘love it’ camp, though I can see the issues people have with the design. My main defense of it is more the fact that we got kid designs for the other OCs in the show and it’s only fair Varian got one as well. The fact that he’s in smaller versions of the S1 clothes doesn’t bother me anymore than when Lance ran around for two seasons in the same outfit, including when he was a kid.

So if I like it, then why am I talking about it a salt review?

Cause the most memorable part of an episode shouldn’t be a throw away gag!

People bring up baby Varian way more than they do about anything else in the episode, and no it’s not just because the character popular. It’s because most would like to forget what comes after this scene.

Where is Quirin, by the Way?

Why is your six year old son running around the big city unsupervised?

This wouldn’t get talk about as much it wasn’t for the fact that Quirin being neglectful in season one was a motivating factor in his conflict with Varian. A conflict that was suppose to be resolved back in Rapunzel’s Return but we the audience have yet to visually see any difference in behavior since then.

Quirin’s absence here in the past highlights his absence in the present day and reminds the audience aware that we’ve not been given a satisfying conclusion to one of the most important arcs in the series.

Lets Talk About Wasted Potential

Like I said, I like the idea of exploring Eugene’s past. But we should have gotten that back in season two when it was more relevant. Part of why this episode fails is because Eugene has reached the end of his original character development. He’s now on an identity crisis arc which has nothing to do with this episode.

But you know who still hasn’t finished developing? Rapunzel.

Rapunzel has lots to still learn and viewing her past through outside eyes could have turned this story into something really special. Especially with the ‘inhabiting another body’ plot point.

You have no end of options here,

Have Raps inhabit Cassandra’s body for a day and gain insight into what motivates her. It could have been either before or after they met, both offers up possibilities.

Have Raps inhabit Eugene’s body and experience what he had to deal with growing up and come to see his point of view. (This could have also worked with the Sabbingtons set up had the writers not been stupid.)

And my personal favorite, send her back to right after Queen for a Day and have her stuck in either Varian’s or Ruddiger’s bodies. Force her to see what she did to him and have her acknowledge she was wrong.

And those are just the most obvious choices, there’s other more out of left field things you can do that would still work with good writing. Like exploring Lady Caine’s past, inhabiting Arianna’s body and learning how to be a real queen, get dumped into actual young Gothel and lay out clues to the future Zhan Tiri plot, or possess one of the Brotherhood and experience the final days of the Dark Kingdom; the list just goes on and on and on.

But I Thought You Didn’t Put Kids in Jail Frederic?

Remember that Raps and Pascal are possessing the Stabbingtons who are still teenagers here. They can’t be much older than Varian.

This means that Varian isn’t some special case. Teens have received harsh and deadly punishments in the past for non-violent crimes like theft.

Also teens are called kids still by the majority of the cast. They’re aren’t considered adults with the same rights as someone in say their twenties, yet they can be punished the same as an adult would. Which is horrendous in any time period.

So in conclusion, Frederic is a fucking liar!

Tangled the Series can’t decide if it’s in the far past or a reflection of the modern day. As such it winds up supporting the worst of both worlds. Barbaric practices like hanging for minor crimes and prison slave labor are treated as the norm and never called out for the horrific things that they are; treated as a joke even, but we’re suppose to accept that this world also somehow views adolescence through the lens of late 20th century sensibilities even as it forces minors to go through such atrocities.

Like what are you trying to say show? What is your message on the transition of adolescence to adulthood regarding rights and responsibilities? And don’t tell me ‘it’s not that deep’ because this is suppose to be a coming of age show! That’s the entire premise of the series!

So How Old Are Stan and Pete Again?

I was always under the impression that Pete was a newbie guard, closer to Cass and Eugene’s age than say Cap or Frederic. That’s why he screws up so much because he’s inexperienced, why he seemed to be the closest thing to a equal colleague Cass had in the guard when she was also just starting out, and why I assumed those braided girls from the movie were his sisters.

I mean there was nothing on screen previously that would necessarily contradict this reveal, it just doesn’t feel right, that’s all. I guess he could be like 20 here and be 30 in the show. That would make him only a few years older than Eugene, but still doesn’t explain why he’s so useless a decade later.

I’m fine with Stan being here though. I always thought of him being the older of the two. In fact I headcannon Willow as his mysterious wife that he talked about back in Monty’s episode during season one. (She’s Stan and Pete’s beard, and they’re totally in a open poly relationship. That’s why they’re allowed to stay in the royal guard despite being so incompetent cause they’re technically Ferderic’s in-laws and Rapunzel’s uncles. Just no one ever talks about it cause it’s a minor sandal for a princess to marry lower class and Willow’s hardly ever there.)

And Why Does Xavier Have All Those Plot McGuffins?

I know we’ll never get an answer, but at this point Xavier’s exposition fairy powers border upon ridiculousness. It’s just lazy and a waste of character.

So How Does Time Travel Work In This?

There are three types of time travel stories in fiction.

First is the ‘Changeable Past, Changeable Future’. You see this in Back to the Future. What you do in the past will change the future, i.e. your present. You may or may not remember that you did it, but be warned you could change things too much and break stuff. Like erasing yourself from existence, or ruining your love life ect. The only way to fix it is to go back in time again and change stuff again. But beware of paradoxes or you may destroy the universe altogether.

The second is the ‘Alternate Timeline’, where changing things creates new realties and it’s a matter of finding the right reality again. The tv show Sliders is a great example of this. Each new timeline is a different dimension. What you do in one won’t effect your original point of origin, only that particular world. The challenge if often getting home again because the probable diverging timelines are infinite and the changes of getting back are a zillion to one.

Third is the ‘Closed Time Loop’. No matter what you do nothing will change. The future is inevitable and whatever you do in the past was always meant to happen anyways. Gargoyles handles this really well. You can also have ‘fix points’ where certain important things are set in stone but small things can be changed like in several Doctor Who episodes. Braking a fix point breaks the universe once again, while paradoxes are often the solution rather than the threat.

So which type of time travel is Tangled dealing with here?

Scenes like the conversation regarding Pete’s and Stan’s mustache or the ones involving Eugene working on his smolder suggest a closed time loop. Yet the ending to this episode reveals a changed future. Further still the grandfather paradox revolving around the hourglass would make you think an alternate timeline yet, we’ve no indication that anything else changed other then Eugene’s opinions on Cass, and Raps shows no concern about getting back to her original point in time indicating that it actually isn’t another dimension.... so what is it then?

You don’t have to have a tightly plotted time travel story to have an entertaining piece of media. Endgame is riddled with plot holes and contradicts itself constantly, but what it lacks in coherent plot it makes for with fun characters, emotional story beats, and good pacing that manages to balance the action with the drama while hiding the cracks just enough that you don’t lose immersion.

Tangled however fails at even this because it gets the character beats so fundamentally wrong. Like you may dislike where the characters ended up in Endgame, but can’t say that those developments didn’t match the characters’ previous storylines and logical trajectory. Tony finally becomes the selfless hero by committing the ultimate sacrifice, Steve learns self care as a mirror to Tony’s arc as they were always parallels to each other, Bruce learns to accept himself, Thor processes his grief and lets go of the role he was assigned at birth but never truly fit into, and Nat becomes the leader she was destined to be rather than the sidekick.

What happens to the characters in this episode however makes no sense.

This is Another Missed Opportunity to Explore Eugene’s Past

The other problem behind the episode is that we don’t actually learn anything new. If you’re going to promise a story focusing on Eugene’s past then I expect to actually glean some new insights.

We still don’t know why he’s working with Baron or how he fell in/fell out with him, what his relationship with Stalyan is like, how he became so cynical; not just the general basics, like the orphanage, but that point in his life where decided that survival meant giving up his morals and ethics; where did he first learn his better ethics that he originally suppressed (cause it sure as heck wasn’t Rapunzel), and when did he and Lance become separated?

This are questions that series decides to raise by making allusions to them and building conflicts off of them but never wants to explain the details of where they originated from. It’s super frustrating and wholly unnecessary. If you didn’t think the story of Eugene’s past worth telling then why did up repeatedly bring it up Chris?

Why Are You Surprised by This Rapunzel?

Rapunzel you know Eugene’s past. You know what he used to be like. You were literally there in the movie and saw him being an ass before this. You didn’t start to like him until he dropped his guard down in the flooded cave back when you both where about to die.

You fell in love with him when he showed you his real self and he fell in love with you when you proved that you were accepting of that. You earned each others’ trust. This here; angrily yelling at him and judging him, when you’re already hiding who you really are from him both literally and figuratively, is a breaking of that trust.

Who the fuck are you any more, Rapunzel?

Cause you’re not the same character from the movie. You’re not even the same character from season one. But whoever hell you are now, it’s not an improvement I can tell ya that.

So How Did The Hourglass Go From the Treasury to the Basement Storage, and How Would Raps Know It Was There At This Point and Time?

I’m guessing the implication here is that Crowley put Cass’s stuff in the vault, but like why the fuck would she do that? We’re not talking about a family attic here, but the royal safe. The most heavily guarded room in the castle with the kingdom’s most priceless treasures and antiques. Nothing Cass owned was that valuable.

Rapunzel Is Full of Shit

Oh let me count the numerous ways in which this whole lecture is stupid.

Rapunzel left Varian behind. Rapunzel left Varian behind multiple times, including that time he was thrown in jail. She was not a good friend, and no, this is not a case of her learning from her past because not once has she ever admitted that she was wrong to do that. So this scene just makes Raps look like a hypocrite.

Eugene does not need to relrean a lesson on being a better a person. He did that during the movie and has progressed beyond that point. This ‘lesson’ is a waste of time and a misuse of the characters.

This reframes Rapunzel as being in the right during her argument with older Eugene at the beginning of the episode, even though she’s not. In fact this is such a counterintuitive plot point that it boggles the mind. Who structures a narrative this way? Why so blatantly point out how the main character is wrong if not to have her learn something? Why frame the story to make the person who’s personal conflict isn’t even the episode’s focus, into the one who needs to learn something? Especially if that something is already a lesson that they’ve learned on screen beforehand.

And why, oh good heavens why, would you teach children such a toxic message? Like on the surface it sounds like something you’d hear in a children's show, but the context of it is justifying harmful behavior where you selfishly ignore other people’s wishes and boundaries just to satisfy you’re own personal desires.

And finally, Eugene and Lance do not work as a parallel to Raps and Cass. Cassandra is an adult who left of own free will. Lance is a teenager who was arrested due to Rapunzel’s own actions. Eugene isn’t the one who is responsible here, its Rapunzel. Who also left them both behind in her carelessness. Secondly, Eugene’s decisions are spurned by years of trauma and a healthy fear of dying, while Rapunzel’s is wrapped up in her own need to always be right and to keep her immature and fanciful outlook of the world intact. As harsh as it seems, what Eugene did was based off a predetermine agreement and presumably Lance would have acted the same way or been pressured to act the same way by Eugene. In short, Eugene’s cynical world view as a teen is not the source of his disagreement with Rapunzel but an adult perspective back by common sense and a respect of others choices. It makes no sense for present day Eugene to ‘learn’ anything from this misadventure that he didn’t already know and for Rapunzel to not learn anything that would actually tie the parallel together.

Locking Another Teen Inside a Jail Cell With Another Adult as a Joke, Does Not Erase the Inappropriateness of Varian’s Story

The episode tries to add another joke about Shorty sneaking into the prison without the guard knowing, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact someone had to have tossed Lance in there with him on purpose. Otherwise Lance wouldn’t have assumed Shorty was a fellow prisoner if he or the guard that locked him up saw Shorty sneak in before then.

Furthermore Lance’s nonchalant response suggests this is not an out of the ordinary occurrence. Nor do any of the other guard comment upon the irregularly of teens being jailed with an adult. Now add in the fact that the show fails to clarify that previous ‘cellmate’ line from Rapunzel’s Return and now gives us more confirmation that Varian was underfed and malnourished for a year with that gruel joke and you have a horrifying picture.

Shorty might be non-threating, but that doesn’t mean Andrew, a known attempted murderer and manipulator, is too. Nor any other adult who previously was housed with a teen before then. This is still very much not okay and no amount of ‘jokes’ will suddenly make it right.

Raps, Who is an Adult, Just Physically Threatened Two Teenaged Boys and It’s Played as a Joke....

How many times do I have to say it? Humor does not fix bad writing. I’m not laughing when a heroine at age 20, threatens a couple of kids for merely annoying her. Especially when said heroine has a history of abusing children; because let me repeat once again, neglect is abuse!

This is a Lie

No you wont.

Rapunzel never tells Eugene what happens on screen. I suspect that if she ever did, they would no longer be together, because what she wound up doing here was a violation of trust and boundaries in the worst possible way.

And This is Now a Time Paradox

A Grandfather Paradox to be specific. How can Rapunzel be here in the past to break the hourglass if the hourglass that sent her here is broken?

In a competent series this would be the point of a future conflict and not the actual resolution. It’s not a closed time loop because of the paradox and the changes we’ll see in the future.

So either she’s in an alternate timeline/dimension and just doesn’t gives a shit; leaving the real Eugene, Lance, Cass, ect. to go on without her; or she’s just broke the universe and everything is slowly unraveling around her; galaxies are dying as she whines about being dumped, people in the future are being eased from existence, and God is cursing her name for ruining his creation, all the while she carries on oblivious to the destruction in her wake, as usual.

That’s it. Those are you’re only two options now. Is everyone from here on a fake copy or is Rapunzel the damned destroyer of worlds? You decide.

So This Confirms That the Stabbingtons are Indeed “Family”

Another reason why I place this before Return of the King; it explains why Eugene considers the Stabbingtons ‘family’. Though if it was Rapunzel he actually bonded with and not the real Sideburns, then how much of his feelings are real and how much of them were fabricated by her? How much agency did this episode steal from him?

So What Exactly Did We All Change?

Well the dummy no longer has Eugene’s face, but Cass’s painting of the three of them still has him ripped out of the photo, soo... Keeping in mind that Raps painted the dummy anyways and considering that Moonandra tries to kill him later on; I’m going to guess that Cass’s feelings weren’t actually altered. If anything their relationship might actually be worse now, cause Cassandra keeps acting like she’s never had friends and Eugene has taken up Rapunzel’s blind devotion.

All that development in season one is just, poof, gone. Also it’s quite possible that the first movie as well has now it has been erased from existence as Eugene got his needed character development eight years too early. How the hell that’s suppose to work, I don’t know.

Outside of the that we get no confirmation how anybody else was effected, even though a more brainwashed Eugene running around would undoubtedly have caused a butterfly effect. Don’t expect that to be explored anytime soon.

Though, it would explain why he’s suddenly such a doormat in season three, if this was the second episode as theorized.

No! This is the Wrong Lesson!!!

Let me explain narrative promises.

Everyone, on some basic fundamental level, understands how stories work. We hear them recounted to us over and over again from the day we're born to the day we die. It’s integral to how we communicate as human beings. Everyone knows innately how to tell a story even if that person couldn’t tell you how stories or structured or what certain literary terms mean, but they do it every day just through speaking. And while most audiences can’t always pin point what upsets them about a story they can for sure notice when things are off and not satisfying to experience.

Now that doesn’t mean that everyone can write an awarding winning novel, that study of a craft isn’t important, nor that every amateurish critique thrown at any given media is valid. But it does mean that people have come to expect certain storytelling practices and can pick up on narrative cues. We’ve familiarized ourselves with the language of film, novels, comics, ect, into order to comprehend what’s going on.

Rules of writing are just following that established language so that the audience can keep up. You can break these rules, sure, but unless you know what you’re doing and have a good narrative reason to do so, then you can easily lose you’re audience. And if you’re making money off said audience that’s something you want to avoid.

A narrative promise is a cue; a set up that lets the audience know that ‘hey this is important, pay attention to this cause it’ll come back into play later’. Now that the audience has been alerted to the plot point they expect fulfillment of the promise. If you break that promise, either through poor set up, lack of follow through, or by breaking an established convention of writing for no other reason then because you just wanted to, your audience is going to walk away unsatisfied.

The argument at the beginning of the episode was a narrative promise. It was a cue that set up the interpersonal conflict of the main character. For add context, I know that this is a coming of age story. Convention would dictate that the protagonist would resolve this conflict by learning they were wrong.

That’s not what happened here.

Convention was subverted. It wasn’t the protagonist who grew and change, it was the person they were in conflict with who did. And it wasn’t subverted because of any greater narrative reason, or future pay off, or even as effort to be shallowly ‘clever’; it was subverted because the author just didn’t want to hold the main character accountable for anything. Because said character has now become his avatar for his wish fulfillment fantasy and having the main character admit fault would be to admit fault in ones own self. Rapunzel doesn’t feel like Rapunzel this season because she’s just Chris in a wig.

The episode broke a narrative promise to the audience; both within the episode and in the greater premise of the story, because of ego.

I don’t claim this episode is bad just because of personal taste nor because I find it morally repulsive (even though both those things are true), I call it bad because it exhibits bad writing. Plain and simple.

Way To Undermine The Entire Point of the Original Movie, Show

Speaking of breaking narrative promises....

TTS is suppose to be a squeal to the original movie. It’s even in the title of the show; both of them. In one fell swoop, the series has managed to sabotage it’s very reason for existing, as it erases Eugene’s motivation and the inciting incident that kick started the film.

Way to fucking go.

To further twist the knife, it diminishes the duel protagonist of said film in order to prop up a series original character, who isn't even present in the episode itself.

I don’t mind Cassandra’s existence. I don’t even mind her being the new deuteragonist and one of the main villains; even though she wouldn’t have been my first pick to fulfill those roles given her lack of set up. But I do fucking mind it if she upstages other characters and/or derails their character arcs in the process.

This is the Death of New Dream

I was still in denial when this episode first aired. I honestly believed that this and The Return of the King was build up to a third “betrayal” where Eugene finally became fed up with Rapunzel’s bullshit and joined forces with Zhan Tiri. I thought the end of the series would have Rapunzel apologize to everyone she did wrong, Varian, Cass, and Eugene, in order to break ZT’s hold on them, and that true love’s kiss would reunite the sundrop and the moonstone and that would just tie everything together into a neat little bow and give us a truly daring character study of a Disney hero.

Oh dear merciful heavens, was I ever wrong.

How did we go from season one’s challenging and mature storyline, complete with Disney’s first real anti-villian, to this?!

What the hell happened!?

Rapunzel not only disrespects Eugene’s opinions, violates his privacy and trust as she manipulates him as a teen, and then brainwashes him to think like her (even if accidentally), but doesn’t even have good grace to tell him. She instead has the audacity to look all happy and self congratulatory because she got want she wanted. She, and the show at large, doesn’t care what evil thing she does to get the desired outcome Rapunzel wants.

Rapunzel in this show is a spoiled brat. And the image of her and her now lobotomized boyfriend staring dead eyed at a picture of the creator’s previous waifu OC with plastic smiles on their faces, sums up this series perfectly.

Conclusion

This isn’t even the worst episode of the series guys. I don’t know if it would even make it onto a bottom five list. That’s how much crap I have to wade through when it comes to this show. This is however the most damaging episode to the franchise as a whole.

Not even the most hardcore of New Dream fans want to acknowledge the existence of that final scene, and Rapunzel stans won’t defend her beyond, ’well she didn’t mean too, it’s the writing that’s bad.’ Yeah, the writing is bad, that’s why the character can’t and shouldn’t be defended, not here and not in other badly written episodes where she also does bad things and never makes up for it.

Anyways I’m finally caught up to where I left off, before the move, though sadly I don't think I’ll get this series done by the end of the month like I had originally hoped. But if you would like to help out I have a ko-fi you can drop a tip into if ya want.

https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

#tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #Eugene #anti-rapunzel #anti-tangled

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subject-2-change · 3 years

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Heyy you're back I missed you!

And for the ask game, Varian duh

Thanks for the ask! I've missed you, too! 💖

Favorite thing: Depth of his character. Boy was well written. No wonder he's a fan favorite! I truly do love how much of a genuinely annoying teenager he is.

Least favorite thing: Disregard for Ruddiger. Experimenting on him for SotS. I mean, he was literally a pest in WTH. And where is he in RR? This is an animal so loyal he went to prison with Varian. He did Ruddiger dirty.

Favorite line: It's in S3 ep1, when they fight the Saporians on the airship. Right after he dissolves Andrew's sword, off screen he goes "heh!" That is my favorite line. He continues with "not bad for an alchemist, eh?" He's so annoying and I love it.

brOTP: Freckle siblings have my whole heart. "I'm not giving up on you." I love them, your honor.

OTP: No one from canon. But I'm such a Varigo nut. I love their (theoretical) dynamic, though I do think Varian would be more obnoxious and also put Hugo in his place more than I see most writers portray. I feel like sass-master Varian gets overshadowed by soft-boi Varian in most fics I see with them.

nOTP: anyone from canon, but I'm not vehemently against any of it. The one that is the worst to me is Varipunzel, but that is because I see them as having a sibling dynamic, and I have siblings so it just 🤢... I've seen some cute art and even read a couple of good fics, though. Talented artists are talented, even if I don't ship the pairing.

Headcanon: Varian got Xavier's help in deciphering the scroll. (Most of my favorite headcanons from tts involve Xavier). He knows the history, the legends, where the Demanitus Device was and how to get to it. Varian figured out that scroll so quickly, you can't tell me he didn't get help.

Unpopular opinion: Varian deserved more of a struggle for his redemption arc. Don't get me wrong, Frederick is the worst for how he imprisoned Varian and didn't get the kid help like he said he would. But he built an army of weapons and attempted regicide (or at least threatened it). He was a terrorist. Prison was well warranted. Generous, even. But when he helped in BVA, it was like everyone was just immediately cool with him. He got off easy.

Song: I have a few, but Unstable by Chaotica is pretty fun for something heavier (more S1 and early S3 boi). Or My Name Is.. by Once Monsters for something lighter (more from S1 through Vat7K vibe).

Also, science is cool.

Favorite picture: HOW can I choose just 1?! I have over 200 screenshots saved on my laptop of the boy, and only from a few episodes. So have 2. My favorite face, and my favorite smear frame.

Oh boy! I'm "back." Currently moving and had to pick up a second job. So my posting will be sparse at best. 😅

#I have so much to say about the boy #it's been a while since I've gotten to fixate #varian #answered #xobarton #the boy

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bestworstcase · 3 years

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"[Rapunzel] stops accepting blame for things that aren’t her fault". I've seen this mentioned before on other blogs talking about Rapunzel's character growth over the series, but I don't understand what it's referring to. Sorry if this is too vague/broad an ask, but what are you thinking of in seasons 1 and 2 when you say that Rapunzel has learned to stop taking the blame for things that aren't her fault by season 3? Apart from Rapunzel's Enemy and maybe QFAD, I can't think of anything.

i think this is one of the more understated things about rapunzel’s characterization in that there is never like, a specific moment where rapunzel Verbalizes acceptance of blame for things she clearly isn’t responsible for, but it still imo informs a lot of her behavior?

and it goes all the way back to the film. right out of the gate we see that guilt tripping and blame passing are two of gothel’s chief weapons: when rapunzel’s feelings get hurt by one of gothel’s “jokes,” gothel chides rapunzel to “stop taking everything so seriously,” which is abuser-speak for “nothing i say is wrong, it’s your fault if you’re hurt.”

then there’s digs like “oh, rapunzel, you know i hate leaving you after a fight—especially when i’ve done absolutely nothing wrong...”

and the big one, after gothel loses her temper and yells at rapunzel, and then immediately collapses disconsolately into a chair and says “ugh, great—now i’m the bad guy.” overtly blaming rapunzel for “making” gothel snap at her. (this of course gets called back to at the end of the film, though it’s less a guilt trip there than it is a threat.)

aaaand right before “mother knows best (reprise)” when rapunzel asks how gothel found her, gothel says, “oh, it was easy, i just listened for the sound of complete and utter betrayal and followed that.” this one imo is the clearest illustration of how all this impacts rapunzel emotionally, because she goes from scared/alarmed/startled to just. sagging, in obvious guilt.

but then of course there’s also the scene right after rapunzel leaves the tower, where we see her oscillating wildly from jubilance to despair and guilt as she frets over what her leaving will “do” to gothel, how mad / upset / betrayed gothel will feel, etc. so even when gothel isn’t there, actively reinforcing this behavior, we can see that rapunzel very much feels that gothel’s feelings are her responsibility—and if gothel is upset, that’s rapunzel’s fault.

anyway!! all this adds up to rapunzel leaving the tower with this subconscious mindset that all problems are her problems, and we see this expressed very early on in s1. i would even argue as early as before ever after... with both frederic and eugene.

BEA goes really hard right out of the gate with driving home how restless and uncomfortable rapunzel feels in corona; how stifled she is, and how badly she wants to go out and explore the wider world. but it also shows how hard she tries to stuff it down, because her success as a princess is “important to [her] dad.” she tries to bring up her discontent with eugene, but in a roundabout way so as to avoid actually saying she’s unhappy—and then when he says that he’s perfectly happy and content, rapunzel takes a deep breath and agrees with him. it isn’t overt text, but she’s still in “managing other people’s feelings” mode, and there’s a reason the only person she is honest about her own feelings with is cassandra—because cassandra signals very clearly that she is not going to feel hurt, offended, or disappointed if rapunzel is less than happy in corona. quite the opposite, cass is the one who suggests sneaking out in the first place!

now obviously, neither fred’s nor eugene’s feelings are rapunzel’s responsibility and i think both would be horrified to know that rapunzel feels like it’s her job to make them happy... but that doesn’t really matter, because rapunzel has been trained all her life to do this and that’s not a pattern that just goes away overnight.

and then also in BEA, we see how quick rapunzel is to castigate herself for doing something that upsets someone else... when eugene proposes and she panics and runs away, her reaction is “i feel horrible about eugene” and to feel guilty/upset about not wanting to marry him Right Now.

aaaand of course caine blaming rapunzel for stuff frederic did goes entirely unremarked upon, partly because things like the hair reveal took priority over that but partly also, in my opinion, because rapunzel just kind of Accepted That because she’s so used to being blamed for everything.

this is sort of a recurring theme throughout a lot of s1. you mentioned RE, but for the sake of completeness—i think the most telling thing in that ep is that, when rapunzel finds out what booing really signifies, her first question is what could i have done to this person?, because the concept that this might be a HIM problem doesn’t even cross her mind. she assumes that it’s her fault he doesn’t like her.

and then there’s stuff like pascal’s story, which i think is an interesting one because like... frankly, it’s not entirely rapunzel’s fault that she stood pascal up. yes, as the princess she could have stood up at six o’clock on the dot to say no more petitions, i am going to dinner. but also she’s the princess, and she’s busy, and pascal’s story is as much an episode about pascal learning that just because rapunzel is busy that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still love him as much as it is about rapunzel learning how to navigate work/life balance—but it’s also very clear that rapunzel’s perspective is “i have been a HORRIBLE friend and i need to put EVERYTHING ELSE on hold until i have FIXED my TERRIBLE BEHAVIOR” when the reality is more like “rapunzel and pascal are both going through a major adjustment period and need to have a realistic talk about expectations now that rapunzel is, like, training to rule a country.”

in painter’s block, rapunzel feels so traumatized by the (largely correct) decisions she made in QFAD that she can’t make any decisions at all and falls prey to sugracha’s manipulation, and i personally think this is the beginning of the tipping point for her where she begins to see that hey... she’s just a person, she literally cannot be responsible for every bad thing that happens, she can’t be in two places at once, she can’t fix everything for everyone... and sometimes she needs to prioritize one problem over the other. that’s why the emotional climax of that episode is rapunzel saying “difficult choices are what make us who we are.” that’s her letting go of the horrific guilt she felt about choosing corona over varian, and letting eugene and the others put themselves in danger to save her parents.

that epiphany carries her through SOTS and enables her to make the tough calls she needs to make re: stopping varian, but it also doesn’t mean that her tendency to blame herself for stuff that isn’t her fault goes away altogether. just look at BTCW: while she’s trying to make sense of how/why eugene could be marrying stalyan, her first instinct is to blame herself. to wonder if maybe this is a response to her kind of sort of turning down his kind of sort of second proposal.

and the rest of the vardaros arc is like... i would say half rapunzel delaying moving on because she’s scared of what waits for her at the end of the black rock trail (as freebird confirms) and half rapunzel making vardaros’s problems her problems and trying to fix them because she feels responsible.

curses is... not a good episode (canardist, why) but the plot basically hinges on canardist successfully making rapunzel feel guilty / dubious enough about taking back her own telescope that she starts buying into the curse stuff and psyching herself out.

*as a sidebar here, there are also instances in this same period of rapunzel acknowledging her culpability in stuff she DID do wrong, for example in under raps—but in these cases, it’s interesting to me to note that her apologies actually aren’t very good apologies. in the under raps example, for instance, she also foists off blame on cassandra (saying basically, well i wouldn’t have interfered and put you in danger if you had told me everything, even though i am terrible at keeping secrets and we both know it). and this makes sense, because gothel certainly did not model good, healthy apologizing habits for rapunzel, lol. so she’s in this weird zone where she tends to feel guilty for everything / feels responsible for other people’s feelings but when she DOES mess up for realsies she also doesn’t really have the skills to navigate a true apology. this poor girl

i would say that RATGT is about the point where rapunzel switches gears from accepting blame (both for things that aren’t her fault, like all this stuff, and for things that are, like when she apologized to cass for being a dick in goodbye and goodwill or when she apologized to pascal for belittling him in king pascal) to sort of... overcorrecting and entering her “i’m right, you’re wrong” phase. RATGT is when she starts overtly shutting cass down, and RATGT is when cass’s injury happens—something so horrific and scary that i tend to think rapunzel just cannot process the guilt. it’s too much, too painful, and not something she is emotionally equipped to hold onto or work through in a healthy way...

...so she shoves it away and blames cass instead, very openly. she transmutes her guilt into anger, lessening the pain she feels. and she sticks to that throughout RDO, throughout the rest of s2, and evidently through the rest of the series given she literally never apologizes for it. which is outside of the scope of what you asked alksdfjklsfd but i tend to think basically, rapunzel is not very good at distinguishing between “i feel guilty, but it isn’t my fault” and “i feel guilty, because it is my fault” so in the process of unlearning the former behavior she also forces away the latter, and at the end of s3 she’s in a place where she needs to re-learn how to feel guilt in a healthy, reasonable way. because guilt isn’t always a bad emotion, sometimes it’s just your brain’s way of saying “i did something bad, and i want to make up for it” and That’s Good.

#rta #im just rambling but bhjhjfhjdfs #i guess in the broader sense anon #'blame' here doesn't exclusively mean 'feeling guilty'#it also means 'feeling responsible'#anyway this is a bit of a mess but these are my thoughts #Anonymous

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nullanythorm-ao3 · 4 years

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Okay so bear with me, a little background on this idea of mine. As a writer, my primary love when it comes to writing is characters. My characters’ motivations, background, process of reasoning, and to a lesser extent their psychology. While I’m writing, I’ll often look for music to inspire my latest project or drive a character interaction in a particular scene. So, lately, as I’ve been working on my work and listening to a bunch of Tangled songs throughout my time working on TiSE and CiM, I came up with an idea. This idea.

But what if Varian and Cass’ songs were swapped?

This isn’t a roleswap AU or anything. Rather, it’s just as I said. A swap of their primary character/villain songs. Varian’s s1 arc gets Waiting in the Wings, its reprise, and Crossing the Line. Meanwhile, Cass’ s2-3 arc gets Let me Make You Proud, its reprise, and Ready as I’ll ever be. Basically, I realized that Cass and Varian actually have very similar motivations, they’re just skewed to different sides. They have other things that separate them as characters, but I feel swapping their songs could actually bring out other sides of their characters while still emphasising their motivations and make for some interesting emotional points where it wouldn’t have been originally.

So, I’m going to go over EVERY SINGLE ONE of those six songs verse by verse (or maybe even individual lines for emphasis sometimes) here - and tell you how I think the emotional beats of a lot of the songs still fit if they’re swapped because this epiphany has been driving me crazy and I think it’s time to put it on paper. We’ll be going in chronological order based on the order they’d be in if they WERE swapped, not how they originally are. So buckle in cuz this is gonna be a long ride!

Okay so we’re starting with

Waiting in the Wings (Varian Version)!

Oooh boy. So first and foremost, some of these songs might change where they’d pop up due to the tone of the song being better in a certain setting. Waiting in the Wings isn’t one of those, but I wanted to make that clear since for each song I’ll be specifying where in time in the timeline it’d be.

So Waiting in the Wings, in this song swap, would happen in the same place as Let Me make You Proud. Varian accidentally traps Quirin in Amber, and rushes out to get Rapunzel. It’s got a bit more of a somber vibe to it, but I think it actually really works to ramp up the emotional gut punch here. Let’s get started!

Guess we all are born with parts to play Some of us are stars and some are just in the way I know I was meant for glory But that’s never what my story brings And Yet I keep on waiting

So this first verse! I think it really could set up how Varian feels underappreciated. He really wants to stand out - get the glory and attention he feels he deserves so his dad can say he’s proud of his son for a change. Yet, others like Rapunzel, Eugene, Cass, etc are the stars. As he’s going out into the storm to get Rapunzel, he’s basically musing to himself on the fact that he’s relying on his friends again, having royally screwed up, and needing the stars of the show to fix it while he’s still waiting for his moment to shine.

That “Some of us are stars, and some are just in the way” is a real gut punch here because Varian’s always had a bad reputation. And while he’s kept trying and trying and trying to do things right - he’s starting to feel that maybe he can’t do anything on his own.

When You have the passion and the drive You expect your moment center stage to arrive I show up with heart ablazing Ready to achieve amazing things But I’m left waiting in the wings

Oooooooh boy. This boy definitely has passion and drive. He’s tried so hard to perfect his alchemy. To do great things. He wants to learn, to create, to build. Get that moment in the spotlight so he can be proud of himself, so that he can impress his dad. He wants to help others with his big brain so bad, to do something that can have him center stage - to get attention.

But every time, he gets shown up. Either his inventions go awry and someone else fixes his mess, and he’s left unappreciated and scorned for trying. Or he simply gets little attention for the things he has achieved. Not many people really acknowledge his attempts because they always fail. He’s always just been lagging behind Rapunzel and Eugene.

I hear my cue, and yet I’m kept there waiting Know what to do, and still I stand there waiting It’s always someone else who sings While I’m left waiting in the wings

So a lot of what I’ve talked about before applies to this verse. He feels like he can’t do anything without the others. Like he’s always an after thought, in the background. He wants so hard to be seen as an equal, but he’s just a kid. A smart kid wit ha brain a bit too big for his age who tends to rush into things and that leads to destructive aftermaths.

He wants to jump in, has the mind to help problem solve, but feels like he’s shrugged off by the kingdom and his father for other, brighter stars.

And so I keep on keepin on My chances come and then I blink and they’re gone Always overlooked unfairly While pretending that it barely stings

This boy. He internalizes so much of his pain. He tries to laugh it off, optimistically “keep on keepin on”, as it were. Yet every time he has a chance to prove himself, he always misses it. Whether it’s him getting ahead of himself, someone else not understanding his work and ruining it, basically any chance he has to really prove himself comes and goes so quickly he can hardly keep up.

And so he winds up overlooked. Scorned. Hated. He has a horrid reputation, but is always trying to keep going. Especially after becoming friends with Rapunzel. He feels like he really has a chance, so he keeps going. Keeps internalizing. And tries to reassure himself that his time will come some day.

But it stings, yes it stings, and -

I wanted this line on its own here. Because let’s talk about this one line. That’s probably one of my favorite lines in this song for Varian. Even before Queen for a Day. It stings. His dad constantly being disappointed in him. People discounting him because he’s small, young, rash, his inventions always blow up in his face. Even though he wants to stay positive and keeps going. Even though he wants to do his best to make his friends and, most importantly, his dad proud of him. He has to fight all the negativity that surrounds him. The POWER here, as Varian’s rushing to try to fix another of his messes, some part of him probably knowing that it wiill probably go wrong somehow, but still wanting to do good. Oof.

I’ll shed no tears, I’ll only keep on waiting If no one cheers, well I can keep on waiting Who cares how loud the silence rings

OKAY We’ll get to the last line of the song in a bit. But I want to talk about THESE THREE LINES. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t mope. He just waits for his moment. He keeps going, and keeps triyng to find that time to shine. No matter how much he gets heckled. No matter how much he’s scorned. No matter how much he feels like no one’s on his side. He keeps pushing forward. Keeps looking for that silver lining. It doesn’t matter if they ignore him. If they avoid him. If they discredit him.

You’ll find me waiting in the wings

Because he’s always going to be there. Just waiting for his chance. No matter what, even if he’s relegated to the background character relying on Rapunzel. He’s going to find a way to get the praise he feels he deserves. That he absolutely craves from his dad and those around him. Even if he isn’t the star - as much as it hurts to not be able to do anything himself.

Waiting in the Wings (Reprise; Varian Version)

Okay so - The Reprises were the trickiest ones to work into this swap. However, with some thought, I was able to work out how to fit them in. So this is another one where the timeline of the song is the same as where his original song would be in the show. In other words, right as he came in to find Quirin fully encased. I’ll elaborate more on it later, but for now basically imagine the young Cass/Varian parts to be Varian reminiscing on the time when he was younger. Basically slipping back into his feelings as a kid and realizing that nothing has changed.

Bonus points if you can actually picture the Young Varian reminiscing parts as a tiny Varian left alone in his lab/room reading while Quirin’s out helping the villagers of Old Corona because he’s kind of a village leader-ish?

(Young Varian) Guess by now I oughta know my place Do your humble duty with a smile on your face

I should state. I by no means think Quirin is a bad parent. This is the big separation between the original reprise and Varian’s version. The original was focusing on how intentionally neglectful and emotionally manipulative Gothel was. Here, it’s more the mental state of a young/teenaged boy raised by a single father with a lot of responsibilities and who’s often worried, concerned, and frustrated at his son’s experiments.

In these lines, Varian is reminiscing on how even when he was younger, he always seemed to defy the expectations his dad had for him. He never learned to stay collected, and wasn’t a leader the way his dad was. Couldn’t just follow along and “do his humble duty” and follow what the kingdom says while smiling and ignoring what he wanted to do.

My dad knows how much I love him But he’s always doing other things So I’ll keep waiting in the wings

The pain. Quirin’s a single father. But he’s also, like I said, sort of the leader of a village. Or at least someone who’s very well-respected within the village. So naturally, he gets called on for a lot of things. He has a lot of problems he has to solve. That on top of the work he has to do in the fields? He doesn’t always have time for his son, as much as he might want to make time. I feel like that would go doubly for the fact that Varian is so clever for his age, Quirin has a hard time keeping up with all his science-y talk and alchemy experiments. So from the time Varian was young, he probably didn’t get much time with his dad.

So he was left to himself, reading thick alchemy books and Flynn Rider, performing experiments, and hoping that maybe one day his dad wouldn’t be so busy and would pay him a little attention.

(Varian) I craved so much, and yet I kept on waiting One glance, one touch, and I just kept on waiting

All he wanted was a sign. He wanted to know that his dad understood, even approved, of the things he did. He still does, even as a teenager. He kept on craving, and craving, and craving. And every little chance he got to spend even a little time with his dad, he hooked onto. Told himself that it was only a matter of time. He always knew his dad loved him, but still felt unappreciated whenever he tried to do something to help.

(Young Varian & Varian) And when it came, it came with strings

Now this line. This line was hard to pin down. Again, Quirin isn’t gothel. He genuinely loves his son - no strings attached.

But. Due to how lonely Varian was, and still is. Due to the mind of a child feeling underappreciated and wanting more time with his father. The fact that oftentimes, when Quirin did pay him attention, it was lecturing him about his alchemy. It was disappointment. It was was him seemingly ashamed of all the trouble his rambunctious boy caused. Those strings tied Varian down and kept him striving to get praise and a positive reaction for all the work he did.

(Varian) So I kept waiting in the wings

So this line. Whereas with Cass it was again, her talking about her relationship with Gothel. With Varian here the line is twofold I think. Though directly, the line could be about how he kept trying so hard to be praised to no avail. It also brings us back to the present. Where he’s kept waiting again - for any kind of help he can get. And knowing he’s just going to get scolded for the problems he caused everyone again.

So, before moving on to the next song. I want to bring out one big difference between the two reprises at this point in time. So, with the original Let Me Make You Proud reprise. The song was ominous. It was signaling after everything that happened, Varian was in a dark place. It hit us over the head with “your baby boy is going villain now”. But imagine if, instead we were left with this reprise? Varian ruminating on how even now, things haven’t changed from when he was young. He was till holding out hope for that one bit of praise. That one moment to shine. He was still so desperate to please his father, but had failed again, and could only wait on the good graces of the princess. Crying and desperate. No sign of him turning villain, but a heartbreaking place to leave off. And then we don’t hear from him agian until The Search for Varian, where he’s calling out for help yet again. We’re left hopeful for a reunion between Varian and Raps and for them to make amens. Then, when The Alchemist Returns happens, we’re initially glad to see Varian reaching out. We’re probably on his side when it comes to stealing the flower, because we’ve seen that Quirin hasn’t been the best or most reliable authority. And we want to see Varian get what he wants - free his dad. Rapunzel wants it too, so she agrees to help. But then, over the course of the episode, we see that’s not the case. We see that he’s been manipulating Rapunzel, he’s doing things the wrong way, and he’s starting to take the wrong path. This is the first warning sign. Then the end of the episode - and Varian’s last song for his arc!

Crossing The Line (Rapunzel & Varian Version)

That’s right! instead of Ready As I’ll Ever Be in Secret of the Sundrop, Varian’s big villain song happens during The Alchemist Returns. The way I see it, Crossing the Line works the same as it does originally. Raps sees a friend going down the wrong path, and tries to talk them out of it. This whole song happens in the room where the sundrop was being kept - and oh boy do some of these lines hit differently if you take Varian into consideration.

(Rapunzel) This has to stop now, whatever it is that you’re going through We’ll face it together, me and you. Just like we’ve always done (Varian) No! This has to stop now, this thing where you think that you’ve been my friend And don’t even see how you condescend, the way you’ve always done.

Hoo boy. I feel like I should say this out of the gate - Raps is my second favorite character in the series next to Varian. While I do think she has blame for some of the things that happen in the series, and the way two of her good friends turn on her, I don’t think it’s entirely on her shoulders. It’s in the way these two internalize the conflicts (more in common!). The way Varian is treated by the Kingdom in general not Rapunzel, and Cass’ inferiority complex due to her strained relationship with Gothel.

That said, seeeing the path Varian is going down, Rapunzel wants to try to keep him from going too far. She wants to free Quirin. She wants to help him, and she wants them to be able to do this together. She’s trying to pull Varian back in, and doesn’t want to push him away. She wants to understand what happened and what he’s been going through.

Varian, however, is having none of it. The way he’s rationalizing things right now, he feels dejected and left behind. He feels like Rapunzel’s just like everyone else, who’s condescended and abandoned him for so long. He’s angry, and at his breaking point.

(Rapunzel) Varian, listen (Varian: I’m listening) I know it isn’t true (Varian: Isn’t it?) Just look into my eyes, now (Varian: Well?) I know you feel it too (Varian: Perhaps I do)

Rapunzel is steadily trying to get through to him, and it’s working. Varian doesn’t actually hate her. He doesn’t want to be the bad guy. He loves Rapunzel like a sister, and he can see she’s trying to get through. He thinks that, just maybe, she’ll be willing to help him. He’s willing to reach out one more time, and he’s doubting his choices. He has been ever since he found his dad fully encased in amber.

(Rapunzel) Varian, listen (Varian: I’m listening) I swear it’s not to late So before another line gets crossed And everything we’ve had is lost. Just wait.

Cue Rapunzel’s tendency to say the entirely wrong word at the entirely wrong time. She’s almost through to him. She doesn’t want him to take the whole flower. He’s already lied to her, manipulated the whole kingdom. But there’s still a chance to make amends. They can apologize still, make things right, if he just leaves the flower. She doesn’t want to lose their friendship.

(Varian) Wait? No I won’t wait

But Varian refuses to wait again. He’s already waited. Rapunzel hasn’t kept her word so far, and at this point he can’t take agreeing to be a good boy only to wind up waiting for help that won’t come again. No, he’s going to take matters into his own hands now.

There’s a line between the winners and the losers There’s a line between the chosen and the rest

So this verse is going to be split up into a lot of small pieces - oops.

This kind of shows the way Varian thinks. He’s always had a bad reputation. He’s always felt like he’s a nobody. Like he’ll never do anything right. And he’s always around people like Rapunzel, Eugene, and Cass. He’s seen the stark contrast between the treatment he gets compared with him.

They’re the winners. They almost always get what they want. They succeed in their big dreams. Meanwhile always feels like there’s such a wide gap between others and him. While Rapunzel and the others try to bring up and support others to achieve their dreams - Varian, who’s always beaten down, feels that some people just don’t have the luck to win in life.

And I’ve done the best I could, but I always knew just where we stood Me here with the luckless, you there with the blessed

He sees his lot in life. At this point, he’s given into a lot of desperation and negative feelings. He and Rapunzel are on different sides of that gap. He always knew they did. He always seemed to make things go wrong, and Rapunzel and her friends always seemed to fix them. He’s resentful. Rapunzel gets everything. Her happy ending, her friends, her family. Meanwhile he’s left alone to sort things out.

And that line between the beggars and the choosers Is a line you never let me quite ignore

THIS LINE. This line. Hits different. You know why? “Rapunzel... I used you! I begged you and this kingdom for help. Everyone turned their back on me! It has to be this way”. He literally begged. He tried, begged to get the kingdom’s help. They weren’t exactly in the right position to help at the time, but to him the inaction alone was the same as choosing to abandon him.

This one line was actually one of the driving reasons for this whole post. Because honestly when I first thought about them fitting each other’s songs, and gave them all a new listen with the other in mind. This. Line. Hit me. Like. A truck. He feels abandoned, and like Rapunzel just keeps putting him and his goals on the backburner for everything she wants to do, no matter how much he begs and pleads for her help in his hour of need. Of course, again, it wasn’t really Raps’ choice to throw him out. She does have fault in this, she’s no perfect angel, but I feel there’s plenty of reasons she wouldn’t be able to go straight to him. Varian’s mind, however, is clouded by pain, loss, and resentment.

How I’ve tried to jump that great divide But I’ve never got the chances you were given

He’s tried so hard. He wanted to do something himself. He wanted to do something right. He wanted to be seen as on equal footing with Rapunzel and her friends. To be someone who could work with them. For his mind and alchemical know-how to be useful, somehow.

But all his chances fell flat. Comapred to Rapunzel, who’s lucked out of or worked her way out of every problem she’s faced, Varian just keeps getting dug deeper in. Things just keep going wrong.

You don’t know how much I’ve been denied Well I’m not being patient anymore

Even before meeting Rapunzel, he had a bad reputation. She doesn’t realize how hard he’s fought, and how hard he’s fallen. She has no idea how hard his life has been. How much he’s been left waiting or struggling or trying to find his way out of the negative image he had in the kingdom. He’s done being patient, he’s done doing things the nice way. He’s going to take matters into his own hands and taking action on his own to try to do something to help.

I’m crossing the line, and I’m done holding back So look out, clear the track, it’s my turn I’m taking what’s mine Every drop, every smidge

So this is a fun verse. The first couple lines don’t really mean much. It’s the same energy as the original Crossing the Line. Varian’s putting his foot down. He’s done listening to everyone else, and he’s going to do things on his own terms.

“Taking what’s mine” though is a fun line in regards to the Sundrop Flower. If it will save his dad, he’ll take whatever needs. One petal isn’t enough, so he’ll take every bit he can get his hands on. This is his chance. It’s his opportunity to save the day, he finally has it.

And he’s going to take it.

If I’m burning a bridge, let it burn But I’m crossing the line

Okay, so this is simple enough. He’s really making his point here. He’s going full villain, and he doesn’t care right now. He’s getting what he wants in life no matter what he has to do to get it, at this point. He doesn’t care if he loses his friends - he’s made it without friends before. He’s been hated by plenty of people, a few more never hurt. It’s not as important as his dad.

So this is about where I imagine Eugene, Cass, and the guard coming in.

And for us if we’re over that’s fine I’m crossing the line

And so the song ends. I feel him looking directly at Raps as he says this. He does care, deep down. He’s scared, and worried. But he tells himself it’s fine and hardens his resolve on the last line. I kind of imagine him throwing down the smoke bomb right after that bit - because it’s too perfect okaaaay?

So this does unfortunately mean there’s no big showdown musical number for Secret of the Sundrop. But that finale has plenty going for it so I think it’s fine. Unfortunately this setup means Eden won’t get a chance to exercise her singing voice until season 2. But she has plenty of chances to sing after, so ultimately I think it’s fine to let Varian get the spotlight after this. Since he won’t really get another primary singing part outside of an ensemble other than Nothing Left to Lose.

So, we’re on to season 2 and Cass’ arc! Hope y’all are ready cuz I’ve got some good ones for this one too. Starting with

Let Me Make You Proud (Cassandra Version)

So Cass’ version of Let Me Make You Proud is a bit interesting. Because Varian’s main motivation is making his dad proud and doing right in his eyes. For Cass, taht’s a player - but at this point in the story, and her character arc, this song is more her pleading for Raps to trust her. Yes, her dad and the Corona Royal Guard and her dreams of becoming part of them is another element to it. But go into it with the line that Raps and the group’s trust and respect is first, and her dad and the guard’s is second.

It happens in the same place as Waiting in the Wings - as the gang is resting in the Great Tree, kind of stewing in her resentment toward Adira and desire to get the attention of the others.

Maybe I make things a mess And maybe you’re right to have doubts in me Maybe, but nevertheless If you for once could just trust me

So, Cass is a bit bitter lately. She hates that Rapunzel has been relying on Adira so much, and wants so much for her to rely more on her, like she used to. Sure, those issues have caused her to be snippy and that might have caused some tensions and trouble. Sure, they’ve had their problems, but she just wants Rapunzel to trust her and take her side once. She’s been siding with Adira the whole way through the tree, and though Cass doesn’t trust her, Raps isn’t considering her opinion at all.

“If you for once could just trust me” I think really sums up Cass’ feelings at this point. She’d thought she’d proven herself. Shown she was capable. But still, Rapunzel keeps leaning to Adira’s logic rather than following Cass.

Just this once, let me come through for you The way that you want me to

She knows Rapunzel has always been rooting for her. She knows she’s been relied on plenty, and she knows that Rapunzel understands she’s capable. Yet, lately, she’s been so enamored with Adira that she hasn’t given Cass the chance to prove herself, and she hasn’t listened. All she wants is once, one time that she’d let her logic be right and choose her option over Adira’s. She doesn’t want want to be overshadowed. Eugene did great in the wilderness, Adira knows the local area, and she’s falling behind. But she can still do this.

She wants to be able to protect not just Rapunzel, but all her friends. But Rapunzel is too fixated on not needing to be protected at all.

Let me make you proud Let me show you the best in me Let me give you a reason to believe that I can stand tall

She wants Rapunzel to be proud to call her a friend. She wants to show everyone what she’s capable of. Show them she’s reliable, strong, and that they need to have her around. No more sidelining - she wants to be able to stand among them and say she’s made valuable contributions. That they can give her the chance to be right about something - because she really feels she’s right in distrusting Adira.

And when we return, and I’m more than you dreamt I’d be Maybe then, you will realize that you never actually knew me at all

So this can take two forms. It can keep up the Rapunzel route. Basically saying that once this journey is over and they’ve achieved their goals, maybe Rapunzel will see that she had been right all along. In the thick of it, maybe she’ll finally understand that Cass has been struggling and working to protect Rapunzel, but also to be seen as her equal (a funny theme between Cass and Varian. They just want to be equals).

Rapunzel doesn’t see what Cass wants. She doesn’t understand who Cass is. She’s almost certain she needs to find away to step into her own and get Rapunzel’s attention. And once she’s larger than life after having helped Rapunzel jump hurdles to get to the moonstone - maybe she’ll finally understand.

Secondarily, it could lead into the small part of Cassandra that still yearns for her dad and the guard’s recognition. After the Varian arc, she’s kind of earned it, but she’s not an official guard yet. She wants this to be her chance to really show her worth and show her dad she’s more than just his daughter - she’s a fighter.

She wants to be more than he’d ever expected by going on a major adventure like this and coming out on top. This is her big chance in more ways than one.

Sure I’ve made lots of mistakes I know that I’ve disappointed you Still though, whatever it takes I’m gonna fix it just watch me Just you wait, I’ll make it up to you If it’s the last thing I ever do

So I’m lumping a whole verse together here, because it kind of has the same vibes. It’s basically just Cass talking to both Rapunzel and her father. Saying that she knows she’s made mistakes in the past. Both during the first season and up through The Great Tree. She’s messed up. She’s distrustful, she’s caused a lot of trouble, but she’s dedicated and devoted.

She’s going to show them what she can do, make up for all the mistakes she’s made. She’s going to come around and make everything up to Rapunzel and her dad. Making things up to them and trying to reconcile their differences and show them that she can be trusted. She’s determined to find a way to make it work, and it doesn’t matter what happens as long as she gets through to them.

She’d do anything if it meant getting Rapunzel and her father’s approval.

I will make you proud I will make you have faith in me I will prove that the way I used to be is all in the past I will save the day and go back home triumphantly

So this is a big verse. It comes off a bit different with Cassandra than with Varian, I feel. With Varian, he’s being a smol bean determinator here. He’s trying to push back all the trouble he’s caused and problems he’s created and is so determined, he’s saying he’s definitely going to get over this hurdle.

With Cassandra, I think some of that determinator vibe is still there. But it’s also a little... angry. She’s been shoved off to the side for Adira the last time. She’s at her tipping point, and she’s absolutely going to make Rapunzel listen to her. She wants so hard for Rapunzel to trust her that she’s becoming forceful and angry. But she’s going to prove to Rapunzel, and to everyone, that she’s done taking orders and being overlooked.

She’s going to be triumphant. She’s going to return home with her head held high and with the respect of thsoe around her. Whatever it takes. She’s going to do it.

Cause I long for that look of surprise when you see that I’m rising at last The pride in your eyes when you see that I’m rising at last

This is what she wants more than anything. She just wants to be able to achieve her goals. She’s got big ones, but she knows she can do it. And she wants her dad and Rapunzel to understand her. To trust her. To confide in her in a way they just don’t right now. She wants to be a protector, a friend, someone they trust to get things done.

She knows, that once she’s done with this journey, she’ll have that. And she’s going to have everything she’s always dreamed of. She loves Rapunzel, and her dad, but what she really wants is to rise to a position where she can prove to them that there’s more to her than what they’ve always assumed.

So we’re swapping out tones here. Varian’s character song is the more somber “waiting in the wings”, and Cass’ is the more hopeful “let me make you proud”. Honestly, I feel like this fits each of them very well. I think the best part of these songs is that they both have balances of both somber and positive moments. But whiel I do think it fits Varian’s more positive personality to be more optimistic and hopeful, while Cass’ cynicism shows through in “waiting in the wings”, I think swapping up the songs brings more to both characters.

Varian’s a cute, bubbly boy in the beginning, sure. But he had a bad reputation. He’s caused a lot of trouble with his alchemy, and he’s at his breaking point. Cass is a cynic and a realist, sure. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have hopes and dreams of her own. And she loves Rapunzel and her kingdom and wants to protect them so badly - giving her a little optimism I think works out really well. And, like Varian, her hopeful tone is dashed when Rapunzel uses the Decay Incantation again despite her warnings, and she yet again gets shelved for Adira’s and Rapunzel’s judgement.

She harbors that for a while until eventually, she meets Zhan Tiri in the house of yesterday’s tomorrow.

Let Me Make You Proud (Reprise; Cassandra Version)

Yeah. This reprise was honestly the bane of my existence planning this out. As I said before, the reprises were the trickiest ones I had to place, and the last two songs I was able to properly figure out a swap for. But this one in particular was really tough, because it’s VERY situational. The lyrics were really hard to work with, but I came up with what I think to be a good workaround for it that really helps bring Cassandra’s reasoning home.

As compared to the original reprise, which acts as the big moment where the fans figure out Varian is going bad, the fans already know Cass is turning on Rapunzel at this point. So there’s less of a surprise element here. But it really hammers home the emotion in Cassandra when she does step over that line and decide to become a villain.

So rather than talking to someone specifically here, I feel that Cass is talking more to herself. Rather than the Waiting in the Wings reprise that leads into Zhan Tiri convincing her that she needs to take the Moonstone, this happens after that. It’s just before we come back to the present.

I will make you proud Get the answers and set you free Don’t you worry Whtever it might take, I’m finding a way

So I mentioned Cass was talking to herself here. Rather, she’s talking to the vision of the younger her that Zhan Tiri is showing her. It’s sort of her way of deciding she’s going to make things better and free herself of all the people pleasing and being strung along. She’s tired of playing second fiddle. She’s going to solve this problem, stop playing second fiddle, and do whatever it takes to break free of the pain of being underestimated.

She’s promising herself, the younger version of her, that she’s done feeling trapped. She’s done waiting. She’s done following along. It’s time to stop doing what’s best for others, and do what’s best for her.

And I swear right now that no matter what comes of me Anybody who stands or has stood in my path They are going to pay. They. Will. Pay

This is a more aggressive turn than the original Waiting in the Wings reprise. She’s decided from this point on that she’s going to fulfill her own destiny. She’s not going to just follow Rapunzel around to help with hers - she’s going to make this her story.

And it doesn’t matter who stands in her way. She’s finally going to get what she wants for a change, instead of sitting back and letting others have their way. Everyone is going to pay for underestimating her, and they’re finally going to see what she’s capable of.

I know this section is a bit short - I’m really sorry about that. But the reprises are short, this one in particular. And the Let Me Make You Proud reprise is fairly straightforward as it is. But dooon’t worry, because I saved a fandom favorite for last

Ready As I’ll Ever Be (Songswap Version)

So this is an ensemble song so it’s not really ANYONE’S version. BUT I think it would really hit differently in Plus Est En Vous, either replacing or not long after Through It All. A big final rallying cry to free Corona from Cass and maybe turn her around - all the while Cass is fighting her own inner battle.

So let’s get into it.

(Cassandra) Believe me I know, I’ve sunk pretty low But whatever I’ve done, you’ve deserved (Zhan Tiri: Cassandra -) (Cassandra: Quiet!) I’m the bad guy, that’s fine It’s no fault of mine and some justice at last will be served (Zhan Tiri: Just focus)

So I’m sure one big thing stands out here. We all know the original context of Ready As I’ll Ever Be. However, the context in songswap is different. So one key character has changed. Arianna is replaced with Zhan Tiri. Rather than a pleading captive, Zhan Tiri is egging Cass on. She’s trying to get her to do what she wants, and while she’s mostly succeeding, Cass still wants to do things on her terms.

At this point, she doesn’t care if she’s the bad guy. She might not have considered herself as such before, but now she has to face the facts. Still, if it means getting respect and

Now it’s time to step up, or it’s time to back down And there’s only one answer for me And I’ll stand up and fight, cause I know that I’m right And I’m ready, I’m ready I’m ready Ready as I’ll ever be

She’s backed herself into a corner, now. She knows there’s only one thing she can do. There’s no going back and getting the kingdom’s forgiveness, now. They’re against her, and she’s ready to fight back. If they won’t accept her, then she’ll play the role of the villain.

She knows she wasn’t wrong. She knows this isn’t her fault. They turned on her. She tried to correct things, but the kingdom had already turned on her. She’s come too far to turn back. So she’s ready to do what she has to - defeat Rapunzel and prove herself stronger and better. She’ll be number one for a change.

(Varian) Now it’s time to rise up, or it’s time to stand down And the answer is easy to see Our home will be restored! If you’re in get on board! Are you ready? (Eugene: I’m ready! Lance: We’re ready!) Ready as I’ll ever be

Varian gets to be a charismatic leader yay! He’s working together with Eugene rallying the troops here. After everything he’s done, the people of Corona trust him enough to help fight off Cassandra - and now he’s ready to prove himself once and for all.

Bonus points: Rather than Eugene and the Royal Guard doing the “We’re ready”s I made it Eugene and Lance. Lance is a more major character here, he can have his own line! Also, rather than the more grim motion of Eugene, Lance and the guard taking up swords. There’s a slightly more optimistic motion of the two of them backing up Varian as he rallies everyone with his infectious optimism. Finally, on Varian’s ‘ready as I’ll ever be’, Quirin places a hand on his shoulder and gives a proud smile cuz his boy is finally proving himself. Need to pack in those redeemed baby feels.

(Frederic) Are you quite sure we can do this? (Rapunzel) Together we will, guaranteed!

Another one that’s a BIT more hopeful than the original. Not by much. Frederic’s still a worry wart, and their whole kingdom is at stake, after all. However, the whole Royal family is together, and they’re ready to take their kingdom back. Just a small note in there, since this section doesn’t really change much!

(Cassandra) I’ll make them hear me (Varian) Prove they can trust me (Rapunzel) I’ll save my home and family

So this section was another big reason I made this post. It’s another one of those lines that has me super passionate about this song swap, because think about how different these lines hit at this point in time. Honestly? I think it really works in this context more than the original context.

Because Cassandra is out to make herself heard. It’s not a revenge plan being concocted out of momentary anger, like Varian. She’s doing this because she felt underappreciated. She’s going to make them hear her. She’s going to make sure that she doesn’t go unrecognized again by proving she’s better than Rapunzel once and for all.

Meanwhile, Varian’s out to prove himself for real. Compared to the original context of Cass proving herself to her father and the guard - which was huge in season one - the stakes are even bigger here. Varian’s out to prove himself to an entire kingdom. To the people he’s wronged. To show that he’s really turned around, and that he’s someone the kingdom, his friends, and his dad can be proud of.

Rapunzel’s hits mostly the same. However, right now, the ‘home and family’ line is on a bit of a larger scale. She’s out to save her entire kingdom. And her family - including her friends and subjects. Compared to Varian’s plan that more directly targetted hte royal family, Cassandra and Zhan Tiri are targetting the entire kingdom - and Rapunzel, the little ray of sunshine she is, is determined to protect all of it. Because it’s all her home and everyone in it is like family to her.

(Eugene) And I’m ready (Varian) I’m ready (Royal family) I’m ready (Cassandra) Ready as I’ll ever be

So I omitted the big Ensemble’s part to focus on the smaller “I’m ready”s and the previous three lines here. That doesn’t mean The ensemble isn’t present in these parts. It just means that I didn’t want to focus on them. Their part doesn’t really change the context of the song at all. This part doesn’t, either, really. But I wanted to close the song out cleanly, so you get a proper ending here. That being said, this project was HUGE. While I wrote up the post itself in the span of a day, I’ve been thinking about this and trying to figure out how each song would work in the different context throughout my work on my current ongoing projects, since the ending of the series. It started as a small epiphany I shared with friends, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it - so here we go.

Cass and Varian are both amazing. And I think it’s so amazing that their motivations and thought process, though different in certain fundamental ways, align enough for these songs to work no matter which context they’re in. I don’t know if anyone else noticed or thought of this - but it was a blast to write and I’m glad to finally have it on paper.! Thanks for taking the time to read this monster, to everyone who made it all the way through.

#tangled #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rta #varian #cassandra #tts #song swap

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overthinkingfandom · 4 years

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A song analysis for the promo

The series have been setting Varian and Cass as mirrors of each other's for a while now. Their arcs are very similar, with the major difference between them being where each is right now on their arcs. Cassandra is in a position that reflects Varian's during season 1. In fact, it can be argued that s3!Varian is talking to his past self just as much as he's talking to Cassandra.

With that in mind, we can learn from the song a lot. Both about Varian's current mindset and what went through his mind during s1.

Here are the most accurate words I found so far. Credit to TakuShinobi on the discord server with some tweaks from me.

[VARIAN] You have so much to hold on to

[CASSANDRA] I only want my rightful dues

[VARIAN] Listen please, you’ve lost your grip- And lost your mind All’s not lost don’t be so blind Cut your losses Drop the I-owe-you's Oooh, choose It’s time for you to choose You can stop turning off the screws(?)

[CASSANDRA] Lose, I’m not gonna lose I refuse, I refuse I lose no tears and lose no sleep What I want I’ll take and keep You can start turning up the screws(?)

If we look at Varian's verses, we see they reinforce what we saw of his character so far this season. He's feeling guilty and ashamed but more than that he's feeling regretful. He can no longer relate to the thought process that went through his head during s1, calling it crazy, but at the same time, he does show that he still understands the reasoning as to why he slipped into that mindset. Considering he generally shows a pretty good self-awareness, the reasons he states are likely spot on.

It's interesting to note that what he blames his past self of isn't being malicious or selfish, but of being "blind". A fault that's mostly rooted in lack of knowledge, whether by voluntary ignoring it or just genuinely not noticing.

He goes on to advocate giving up, which on the surface seems to go against his personality. When Varian sets himself a goal he just goes and does it, no matter what anyone says about it or the odds against him. It's both his greatest strength and flaw and without it, it's highly unlikely that events would've happened as they did.

By condemning that trait, it could show a healthy understanding of what went wrong in s1, but considering everything else we know both about his current situation and his personality, it's far more likely to be a sign of self-loathing. Especially considering that's basically the only logical thing to have fueled his redemption as it was presented in the show.

On a bit more positive, the last line of his verse seems to indicate that he feels like he has made the choice to act better, or at the very least that he's capable of choosing that change rather than considering himself inherently bad or irredeemable. So it seems like he at least made some progress from the premiere not that it says much considering just how bad his headspace was at the time.

His line about having so much to hold on to is also indicative of a better mindset. Whether those things are his family, friends, hopes or anything else, it shows that he's once again connected to the world. A big part of the problem in s1 was just how isolated Varian was, to the point he was desperate just to be heard.

If we continue down our road of assuming Varian is metaphorically speaking to his past self as well as literally speaking with Cass, then it stands to reason that her verses can stand in for s1 Varian's mindset

The most obvious is the absolute refusal to give up on the goal (losing) and the amount of determination displayed, which is part of what made him such an effective villain.

(And the word choice of "refuse" is very fitting here. Varian overcame crazy odds all by himself that most anyone else would've shied away from rather than contemplate seriously.)

The rest of the verse indicates that Varian used both the work and the persona he built at the time to repress his emotional turmoil, rather than "losing tears". Considering how over the top he acted it says rather interesting things about him, since the behavior we saw on display was mostly the one he chose rather than his 100% real responses to the situation. He was given the option of playing a type of character as an "armour" against both his emotional turmoil and against his opponents and he chose a hammy persona that loved to gloat. The kind of person that everyone notices because he makes them pay attention to him. It's a power fantasy with two aspects, the first of being in control and the second of being heard. Meaning Varian felt like he was neither in control nor heard when he desperately wanted to be.

The line about "rightful dues" is a reaction born of a feeling of injustice and distrust that any others would come help and so he must achieve justice by his own actions.

Varian very much displayed that kind of mindset in s1. He was angry about a lot of things, most of which can be summed up with "it's not fair", and he was disillusioned about every authority figure in his life in a very short period of time. Add in how his support network collapsed overnight and that he had to deal with a hostile city in the form of Corona and the result is him developing a him vs. the world mindset.

And there are of course s3 Varian's hindsight about his behaviour with the line "Hope’s not lost don’t be so blind". Desperation was a major motivating factor in Varian's actions. As the number of his options decreased, his willingness to go to extremes increased. But what this line tells us that at one point or another Varian outright lost all hope.

In exactly what context is a bit fuzzy. It's possible that over time he internalized Quirin's encasement as permanent to the point some part of him considered his dad outright dead. If so it's possible to read his actions both in a self-destructive light and desperation to avoid confronting the fact that (in his mind) he killed his own dad. Another possibility is that Varian lost hope in himself, in the possibility that he would ever get to go back to a normal life with his dad so it didn't matter just how bad what he had to do was, since he was already lost anyway.

Assuming the moment that's being held up as a mirror to Cass in this ep is SotS, it would mean that he lost hope sometime before that.

It tells us a few things about Varian. One is that even without hope his determination doesn't falter. Meaning that even Varian can't stop himself if there's even the smallest chance of still achieving his goal, even if he lost his belief. So far the only thing that we saw that actually caused Varian to stop pursuing a goal is when that goal was proven literally impossible.

It also casts a lot of his actions in SotS in a new light. Everything we saw there was basically a hail mary even the first time around, but when taken with the information that he lost hope at some point before then a level of self destructiveness, or at the very least carelessness with his self and the consequences that can come on him as a result. Not enough to compromise his goal, that's not how Varian works, but enough to leak into everything else.

And now there's another awful layer to his meltdown. It's not just that his last solution, his last shred of possibility of hope, was destroyed. It was that his hopelessness was validated, that all that bad stuff his hopelessness caused him to think was true. In some ways, this is worse, because in addition to all the stuff he was repressing slapping him in the face he also had all the implications of his failure growing and festering in the back of his mind for a while now.

#tangled the series #tts #tts meta #varian #tts spoilers #transcribing discord adventures #song analysis

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juliethebibliophile · 5 years

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Some Things, Now That I Can (Tangled Spoilers Ahead!!!)

I was getting emotional even watching the “previously on...” segment so that should tell you how well I handled the episode

Congrats to the people who called the Cass is Gothel’s daughter theory!

I honestly don’t hate it. I know there are questions as to how and why Gothel had a daughter but we know nothing rn

She could be another stolen child

I’m also not entirely convinced that the moonstone spirit thing is not lying to her

Like Cass was what? 4 or 5 ish in that scene? The idea that she wouldn’t remember it at all before this moment seems unlikely

Like she’d at least know the situation even if she didn’t remember specifics

But that’s an in depth analysis for another post. I just think it might not actually be true

On that subject, the reasoning makes total sense when you look at Cass’ behaviors leading up to this

Like obviously, no, it’s not at all rational anger, but imo neither was most of Cass’ anger

Like, for the most part, what she was mad at Rapunzel for was not really Rapunzel’s fault. She was mostly projecting her anger about lack of opportunity on Rapunzel

So this fits, but it’s definitely not an okay opinion

But she’s also being very much manipulated here so I’ll give her a little bit of a slide

A little bit. Very little bit,

Moving on with Cass, they did such a good job with this

I haven’t exactly been Cass’ biggest fan in the past and I definitely don’t think her angers or behaviors are at all justified, but they made me feel for her while also letting me think she’s wrong and that’s so hard to do so wow

In addition, you can definitely see her battling with herself in the whole standoff/battle

There’s definitely a part of her that knows she’s wrong but across the course of the scene she forces herself to commit more and more and I’m in paaaaaaaiiiin.

I predicted a lot of things for how Rapunzel would react to Cass’ betrayal but refusing to admit she was upset at all was not one of them and it HURT ME

CORONA CORONA CORONA CORONA I’M SO EXCITED TO BE BACK IN CORONA OH MY GOD

The second Oaf showed up I lost it

Eugene and Edmund’s goodbye was also beautifully complex and painful and God run me over with a train

I wasn’t sure if Fredrick and Ariana were already going to have their memory loss in this episode and then they did and it hurt me

WHEN THEY FOUND THE UNDERGROUND SANCTUARY AND EVERYONE WAS THERE AND FREEDBORG WAS THERE

I REALLY MISSED CORONA IF YOU COULDN’T TELL

WHEN I REALIZED VARIAN WAS ABOUT TO SHOW UP I FREAKED

And his redemption arc was done so weeeellll and I just love it so much

There were so many layers and as his real motivations came to light I just....ouch

He wanted to help the Saporians erase everyone’s memories so that everyone would forget what he did

I can’t even say enough about how glorious that whole redemption arc was and I can’t put it all here but I really didn’t think we were gonna get it this soon and he’s a good boy again and he and Rapunzel trust each other again and I can’t it’s too good

AND I REALLY DIDN’T EXPECT QUIRIN TO COME BACK YET AND THIS WAS REALLY JUST SO GREAT

More emotional death when Rapunzel hugged Cass’ dress and cried WHO SAID IT WAS OKAY TO DO THIS TO ME

Eugene bringing in the cupcake paralleling their conversation at the end of the 1st episode

Everything about “Stronger Than Ever Before”

The wedding symbolism

The goofy dancing

The parallels to the movie and Tangled Ever After

Rapunzel and Eugene standing at the thrones reminding me that they’ll be King and Queen one day oh my god oh my god oh my god

It felt like this happy closing number and that almost felt weird but then I realized S2 ended on a gloomy cliffhanger so this is like the close of the S2 story (and some S1 stories for that matter)

Also

Where are Fredrick and Ariana?

Did Eugene and Lance just forget them somewhere or.....?????

Are we gonna talk about finding a way to get their memories back????

Might be important????

Who’s gonna tell Cap that Cass is evil?

Not it.

I’m so excited for this season but I’m gonna die man

#tangled #tts spoilers #tangled spoilers #tangled the series #rapunzels tangled adventure #mine

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manic-pixie-dream-dude · 2 years

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I've been meaning to ask, what's Cassandras role in your moon Varian au?

ANON! Thank you for the opportunity to ramble abt this!!! I'm stupidly passionate about how my interpretation of Cassandra and I redirected all of it into this AU lmao.

OHHKAY SO!

Obviously, the difference here is that Cass never gets the moonstone, she doesn't need to imo.

I love S1 Cass a whole bunch. She's so interesting, her character was a smart addition and I think the taking the moonstone was, to put it simply, Not Good. Also ooc? And an odd reaction to her situation?

See, Cass is a very logical person. She's smart and careful and very blunt. We see time and time again how she thinks things through first before doing anything, even if her thinking is flawed. She also does this alone (another flaw) and has been shown to like working alone (though by the end of S1, she's learning to work with others).

So I'm baffled as to why, when she finds out she's Gothel's daughter, she hates Rapunzel for it despite seeing how cruel Gothel was (+ the fact that she was basically saved from a life of neglect and potential imprisonment).

Yes she was shocked, but... her reaction would stay 'shock' for a bit, wouldn't it? I think after such a reveal she'd stray a bit from the group, at that point she already felt isolated and ignored (maybe even realizing she doesn't want to simply serve someone?) so she'd go back to processing things alone and won't confide in anyone. The closest person she does gets to telling this to is Eugene but ultimately keeps it to herself.

(Side note: Eugene, being the person who seems to understand her most of the entire gang plus slowly becoming her friend throughout S1 and 2, would notice how the stress is causing a rift between her and Raps. When Raps fails to properly get through to Cass, he tries himself. After Cassandra v. Eugene, they start to work together more. This momentum in their relationship should've continued into S2)

Then she'd start getting scared. If the gang is already ignoring her input, what will they do when they find out she's related to the person who kept Rapunzel prisoner for 18 years? How would Rapunzel react?

That's right, I'm giving her abandonment issues let's fucking go 👏👏

And then do I see anger, she's dedicated so much and worked so hard to be seen or even acknowledged but she isn't being considered anymore. What difference does it make if she leaves, if she works alone?

(I should also note that Cass can be a spiteful/petty person.)

I see her having her own "Rapunzel, I used you." moment, where she tells Raps about Gothel, tries to use it to say that her betryal was bound to happen, it's in her blood, as a way to hurt Raps and push her away before the same can happen to her.

Other than that I want to mention how all throughout S2 Cass was wary abt the moonstone and the vagueness surrounding what it could do to Raps if she held it. She didn't trust anyone Raps trusted and has been harmed due to it.

Cass won't then risk it and take the moonstone herself.

She'll just take the person who has it.

I've touched on this a bit in the past, but I think Varian and Cass' arcs should've been swapped. Meaning, I think Cass would work with the Saporians for her own purposes because, in this AU, the Saporians are working for Zhan Tiri. I doubt that she'd believe in their goal, but if Zhan Tiri thinks she's got Cass, then Cass can use it to her advantage.

(I'm actually surprised the Saporians weren't used for something similar? We don't get much lore for these guys but you could easily utilize them and give them a bigger role. You can imagine how mocked I felt when Mime got to the Dark Kingdom in a hot air balloon but not the Saporians aslkjs)

Of course, even if Cass thought about this for long, she didn't think it through. Working alone in such a high stakes situation isn't the right choice, but it is a choice that makes sense for her character at that point.

So she goes with the Saporians and Zhan Tiri, to learn more and understand Zhan Tiri's plan, and they take a magically unstable Varian with them after he grabs the opal to stop any of them from getting to it first. A distraught Rapunzel is left behind, halfway to a breakdown.

So yeah! that's it for now. I'm still trying to find a cohesive way to tell her arc in a way that isn't confusing or full of ooc decisions.

I'll gladly ramble about her in s3 once I, yknow, finish S3 lmao (I'm sorry I have NOT been able to watch much of this season tbh).

ALTHOUGH! my S3 deviates a bunch compared to S1 and 2, so I will say that she's apologetic and sympathetic to Varian, and they get time to have some progress in their time together as charas who can understand each other's perspectives.

#tts #once in a blue moon au #thanks for the ask! enjoy my ramblings #oh yeah and p.s. her arm still get injured. I'm getting my chronic pain rep everywhere I can get it.#(80s advert voice) Ask Me About My Indulgent tts HCs!#also forgive the random bolding. yknow how it is with The Brain.#mani.txt #mail? in MY chicken coop?

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - The Alchemist Returns

Strap in folks, cause this is going to be a long one. In truth, there are very few flaws in this episode, but in order to explain them I have to really get into some character analysis first.

Summary: Varian comes to Rapunzel for help in finding the remnants of the mystical golden flower, which may hold the key to stopping the Black Rocks. Working together, they venture through the old tunnels beneath Corona. Meanwhile Cass and Eugene work together to figure out who drugged the castle’s populace with a truth serum.

Behold! The One and Only Time Frederic is Called Out on His BS; and Nothing Comes of It.

Rapunzel finally, finally stands up to her dad and points out both his abusiveness and his poor leadership. It doesn’t affect the narrative in anyway. Neither character learns anything from this nor changes their points of view. This conversation might as well not have happened given how the characters behave in later episodes/seasons.

The only reason this scene exists is to give Rapunzel motivation for stealing the flower within the episode. A goal that she changes her mind about towards the end. Thereby walking back on such motivation and putting us back at square one with her development.

Rapunzel Isn’t Being Truthful With Herself Nor the Audience

So people aren't always one hundred percent truthful about what they want and their goals. Especially if it involves admitting something about yourself or a loved one that you don’t want to acknowledge. Fictional characters are meant to give the illusion of being real so they can sometimes mimic this behavior.

Throughout the episode Rapunzel keeps on assisting that she’s doing this ‘for Corona’, but we’re given context clues along side that to tell us that her real reasons are about her relationship with her father.

Unfortunately, the show has a bad habit of not communicating information clearly and also has a history of expecting the audience to take what the characters say at face value. Ergo, it’s easy to miss Rapunzel’s true motivations and thereby fail to fully understand her actions and decisions throughout.

Once Again, These Prophetic Dreams Go Nowhere

Dream Varian mentions Rapunzel has a ‘destiny’ but the show never spells out what that destiny actually is nor why she needs to fulfill it. Sure there’s a big quest for the moonstone in season two, but the rocks stop being a threat by then so really, she doesn’t actually need to go on that quest. In fact, she would save a lot of people at lot of trouble if she did nothing at all. That’s poor storytelling. You need something driving the action; a reason to motivate the hero.

Secondly, we never get an explanation for why she randomly has these dreams in the first season but for none of the others. Nor why Varian is at the center of the them when it’s other villains she needs to actually be warned about, like say Zhan Tiri.

No, the real reason why this dream sequence exists is just to reiterate Rapunzel’s internal conflict. She wants a relationship with her Dad, but he’s a male Gothel, and she’s now caught in the middle of his and Varian’s conflict because she failed to take responsibility when she needed to. And is still failing because she doesn’t want to shatter her illusions about Frederic.

Shoving the main protagonist’s driving conflit into a subtextual dream sequence is lazy. Especially since we get no official resolution to said conflict. Rapunzel never acknowledges the problem here, never follows up on any type of action, and she never faces any true consequences for ignoring the issue.

She carries on believing in her fantasy version of Frederic, even as he continues to do harmful things, and the narrative just rewards both her and him for it.

There Should Have Been an Episode Showing the Audience Varian’s Side of the Story

What happened to Varian in between Queen for a Day and this episode is told only through context clues. Nothing is stated outright, meaning the audience has to rely too heavily on inference and are left to piece together what happened on their own like a puzzle. That’s poor writing.

Even something as simple as ‘how much time has past’ (its three months btw, S1 is six months long and QfaD is the meant to be the midpoint) is left up to the viewer to keep up with rather then being clearly stated. This is made even harder to do by the marketing team showing most of the episodes out of order.

You need to clearly relay information to your audience. That means repeating said information in a variety of ways over the course of the story. Have those context clues, but also have more overt hints, and direct reveals interspersed along with that. Especially when dealing with the motivations and goals of the character driving the main plot.

Even if you attribute the lack of a Varain episode to the ‘twist’ in this one, (a twist that was revealed in QfaD anyways) there’s still no excuse for why we didn’t get a flashback episode afterwards to fill this hole in narrative out.

Don’t Pretend Ignorance Rapunzel

Nigel literally repeated the rumor to her face last episode. She knows her father is lying about the rocks and attacked her for the scroll. She knows from the letter that those same guards were chasing down Varian for said scroll. She knows about Corona’s laws and what would happen to Varian if the guards caught him.

There is zero reason for her to be acting like this is new information. Let alone have any right to feign concern after three months of ignoring his plea for help.

That’s what I mean about the series not communicating clearly and wanting the audience to take things at face value. The show deliberately has the characters say things that contradict established events to try and get the audience on their side.

The episode is trying to telling us, ‘See! Rapunzel is innocent in all this cause she didn’t know, but she’s trying to make up for it now’. Yet, if you’ve been watching and paying attention to the details, you know that’s not the truth here.

Good writing is about communicating ideas to your audience. But this show can’t decide on which idea to communicate. Is Rapunzel at fault or no? You can’t have it both ways. Either she screwed up and thereby caused the conflict in question now or she didn’t. If she didn’t, then events shouldn’t progress like they do. If she did, then it needs to be acknowledged and she needs to held accountable by the narrative.

More Hints into Rapunzel's True Motivation

I can’t stress this enough. Rapunzel’s reasons for stealing the flower has nothing to do with Corona. That is an excuse. It’s about trying to find out what her Dad is hiding from her and why he’s lying to her. This comment right here is what compels Raps to go along with his plan.

Also...

Varian Isn’t Lying Here

I also want to make it perfectly clear that Varian is being upfront with Raps. He tells her his plan is to steal the flower and why. She’s the one that makes the assumption that this entails them only taking one petal and the assumption that ‘all our problems’ only means saving Corona. Even though saving Corona and saving Quirin are the same problem. (more on this later)

It’s important to understand Rapunzel’s thought process and her true motivations in order to make sense of her actions later in the story.

Rapunzel’s internal conflict is her need for autonomy versus her fear of rejection. The ‘for Corona’ and ‘one petal’ excuses are used because she thinks they’ll play well with her Dad. In order words, they’re reassurances to her that should she get caught and have to face her father’s disapproval then she could counteract his arguments with his own belief system about ‘putting the kingdom’s needs first’ and ‘following your own inner voice.’

And yes, both Rapunzel and Frederic are big fat hypocrites for this, but Rapunzel hasn’t acknowledged that fact to herself and is trying to convince herself throughout the episode to believe in her own excuses.

Why Do You Care About Treason Rapunzel?

For context, treason is the highest crime in any country. It’s punishable by death, even in the real world. Now each country has its own legal definition of what constitutes as treason. Here in a America, in Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, treason is specifically limited to levying war against the US, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. And only during a time of war. Legally, a time of war has to be approved by the US congress. Technically, congress hasn’t declared war since World War II. This is why certain people haven’t been convicted of treason like acts both in, and out of, later US conflicts because the definition is arguably too narrow and specific. But it’s intentionally that way to help prevent false accusations and to keep people in power from murdering their political opposition.

Before the US, treason just meant opposing the ruler of the land in any way. The founding fathers committed treason just by signing the Declaration of Independence. They all would have been executed had the US lost the revolution. Here in Corona, that old definition still stands. Simple theft of royal property, a non violent act, is considered treason and we already know it’s punishment. Eugene stole royal property and was almost hanged for it in the movie.

Now Rapunzel though, she is royalty. This stuff she’s stealing is technically her own property. She’ll inherit all of these things once Queen. Moreover, we all know that Frederic wouldn’t harm Rapunzel let alone kill her. She’s not in any real danger here. So why does she care?

Remember that Rapunzel’s internal conflict is personal autonomy versus her fear of rejection. She only hesitates in her pursuit of answers when reminded of Frederic’s possible disapproval. That’s why she stops under his frowning picture to say this. “Treason” only means possible rejection or disapproval from her father. The worst thing she faces is another argument with him.

Meanwhile, Varian’s life is very much at stake here. He is risking everything, quite literally, to save his father. But his life was arguably forfeit as soon as Frederic decided he wanted the scroll. What’s to prevent the king from claiming that as his own property even when it’s really not? If he’s already sent guards after Varian and the scroll then that’s precisely what he’s already done.

The series is acting like Rapunzel is the reasonable one here because she questions stealing, but the reality is she’s being selfish and willfully obtuse. Multiple lives are at stake here, including the one of the person she is talking to right now. Breaking the law, defying her father, in order to save those lives shouldn’t even be in question at all.

Corona and Quirin Aren’t Conflicting Interests.

Quirin and Corona are both facing the same problem. Solving one will inevitably mean solving the other. Any distinction between the two is solely created within Rapunzel’s own mind.

She does this to to hide her true motivations and conflict from herself. The show does this to try and villainize Varian over Frederic.

There’s a clear bias in who the series wants you to root for and so it skews the perception of what’s actually at stake by creating a non-existent competition between Quirin’s life and the country’s safety. Even though Quirin, Varian, and Old Corona are all apart of the kingdom. They’re all Rapunzel’s and Federic’s responsibly too. Saving Quirin’s life should be more than reason enough to steal the flower on it’s own.

But this is ‘Rapunzel’s show’ and according to the creators, that means that her personal feelings are more important than actual human lives. Not really, but that’s their mindset and approach to conflicts in the show.

Rapunzel’s True Motivation is Revealed

So we’ve followed the hints, but here it is stated outright. This was never about Corona, the rocks,Varian’s safety, nor Quirin’s life. This is about her need for autonomy. Her own personal quest for assertiveness. She’s been bullied and abused by two steprate parental figures now and she’s growing tired of it. Which is understandable and valid, but it shouldn’t be made more important than everyone else’s problems. Everytime Rapunzel says ‘for Corona’, she really means ‘for herself.’

Rapunzel Shouldn’t be the Only Person Solving the Obstacles Here

Varian is just as smart as Rapunzel, if not smarter. This has been established throughout the show both before and after this episode. Meanwhile, Rapunzel is more physically adept than Varian. This whole sequence in the tunnels should have been both Rapunzel and Varian teaming up and complementing the other’s skill sets. They need to be on equal footing in order to sell their conflict later on. But the show deliberately down plays Varian’s competence in this episode in an effort to make Rapunzel look good.

‘Girl power’ shouldn’t mean making the character perfect. It especially shouldn’t mean making other characters weaker in comparison. Women want equality. That means we want to see female characters treated as people. That means we want female characters to be flawed while still contributing to the plot same as the male characters. That doesn’t mean we want to be paraded around as the only competent person in the room. We want to be on the same level as the boys not above them.

Over idealization and glorification of ‘strong’ female characters is just as problematic as damsels in distresses.

Writers like Chris Sonnenburg grew up during the heyday of Third-wave Feminism. Right on the cusp between second-wave and third-wave points of view as women really started to challenge Hollywood’s portrayal of themselves as homemakers and love interests. They wanted to be the heroes for once. Starting in the 60s and reaching pick popularity in the 70s and early 80s, film makers responded by making female characters who could physically fight but either failed to give them any sort of depth and/or made them the only archetype available.

Chris, and several other male writers who lived during this era, have internalized this approach by default without actually examining how it came into existence nor why women would no longer be satisfied by this portrayal of them, if they ever were. All we’ve done is trade one stereotype for another, as male creators fetishize what was once meant to be an attempt to empower ourselves.

Had Chis actually brought more female writers onto the show and listened to the criticisms from his female crew, he could have better avoided problems like the one above. But instead he dug in his heels and insisted that he already knew what we wanted. He doesn’t.

Why Would You Assume This Eugene?

Varian hasn’t actually done anything wrong yet. His worst crimes are drugging people with a magic potion, which is what Xavier did without consequence only two episodes ago, and attempting to steal a magical healing flower that the king has been hoarding from his subjects anyways. A king who has been persecuting Varian unfairly and they know this because of Quest for Varian.

Eugene of all people should be sympathetic towards Varian’s plight. He’s been there himself. He should also know that the rumors about Varian attacking Rapunzel are untrue because Raps told him about the events of Queen for a Day herself.

Meanwhile Cassandra was actually there. She knows Varian’s problems and is supposedly his ‘friend.’ She has even less reason to be hostile towards him.

But once again, the series has the characters respond to things that contradict established events in order to create a bias in the audience. “See, Eugene and Cass doesn’t trust Varian and neither should Rapunzel. See, how evil he really is?” It tries to tell us. In order to convince us to excuse Frederic’s behavior so that when the series does just that through Rapunzel choosing his side we’ll be on board with it. You know, unless you have been paying attention, already have a developed moral code, and the reasoning facilities of an adult.

Rapunzel Lacks Empathy

Keep in mind, ‘for Corona’ really means ‘for herself’. The only competition between Quirin and the kingdom is one that she’s fabricated in her own mind. Varian not caring about the island punctures holes into her excuses. Even though Varian is a fourteen/fifteen year old who holds no responsibility for the safety of a whole country. Especially one that’s mistreated him. Of course his father’s life is going to be more important to him.

What Rapunzel is really asking here is, “Why don't you care about what I care about?” “Why aren’t you concerned about my feelings over your own?”

Which makes sense for her character. She’s a woman who has been trapped in a tower her whole life. She lacks the experience needed to be an empathetic person. She’s never had to grieve before. The only permanent death she’s known is that of her abuser. Her trauma over nearly losing Eugene and Pascal was the fear of loss, not the actual process of living without someone. Rapunzel has no framework of reference in order to truly understand what Varian is going through.

Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone. Empathy is understanding how a person feels. Rapunzel may be a sympathetic person but she’s not an empathetic one and there’s a difference between being ‘nice’ and being kind. The show presents to us a woman who needs to learn that difference. The problem is that she never does.

This is actually a brilliant conflict and point of characterization. It’s taking what we already know about a character and expanding upon it to give us believable flaws that impact the story. I actually like this conflict. I like this portrayal. I initially preferred the series over the movie because of this.

I want Rapunzel to be flawed. I want her flaws to to inform the plot. I want to like her as a character. But I can’t. Because the show never acknowledges these flaws, never has her grow as a person. She remains unempathetic and selfish till the end even as she gains more experience, and the show acts like she is justified in hurting others.

This exchange is the quillivant of a rich person who donates money to environmentalist causes trying to shame a poor child for daring to ‘waste water’ in order to take a bath, even while ignoring their own factories spewing pollutants into the local river. The show tries to claim that classism is okay so long as it’s perpetuated by the creator’s favs.

Varian is in the Right

First off he never claimed that he was only going to take one petal. Rapunzel just assumed that. Also, he’s right there is no difference. Once again Rapunzel has fabricated a distinction in her mind in order to have an excuse to sell her dad. She only hesitates now because taking the whole thing means there’s more risk of getting caught and less possibility of weaseling out of punishment through deniability.

Never mind that Frederic doesn’t own the flower anyways. He stole it from Gothel first, outside of his land’s borders. Never mind that him taking the flower actually causes harm to others while stealing it back does not. Never mind that breaking a law to save a human life is not only justifiable but preferable. Never mind that the king is essentially hoarding medicine from the populace, thereby breaking the social contract of a leader towards his people and becoming a despot instead.

No, Varian hurt Rapunzel’s feelings so he’s evil don’t you see? He placed his needs above the main character’s wants and desires, ergo the series treats him as a villain.

Look, I’m not saying that Varian is without fault nor that everything he does is justifiable. But the show (and certain fans) goes out of its way to demonize the character even when he’s doing what’s actually morally right. This isn’t the point when Varian falls to the darkside, that’s yet to come, but it is the point where the series starts to play favorites with its characters at the expense of teaching coherent lessons.

Inconsistent Messages

Yes, how dare he do the exact same thing as Pascal and Max did two episodes later. Don’t you know, he’s the villain; even though he actually has more reason to use the truth serum than they did the mood potion.

The problem of centering so much of the conflict on Rapunzel’s personal feelings means that Rapunzel and the show has double standards for how characters are treated. Friends of Rapunzel gets free passes. Lack of friendship means you’re now the enemy and can’t be excused. Even though in real life that is what we call nepotism and an abuse of power.

Authoritarianism Vs Consequentialism

When you mention the word authoritarianism to someone they automatically picture in their head armed men in uniforms marching in the streets attacking innocent people on behalf of a dictator’s orders. Yet, that’s not what authoritarianism is. That’s fascism, which can spring forth from authoritarians gaining political power but it’s not the only manifestation of this philosophy.

Authoritarianism is the belief system that the ‘authority’ is always right, even when wrong. An authoritarian will find any excuse to follow and believe in their chosen authority even when that authority has failed them or others.

The opposing philosophy here is consequentialism. That’s the belief that right and wrong are directly linked to consequence. To their minds something is morally wrong if the action has a bad outcome for others.

To illustrate the difference let's look at a near universal rule.

“Murder is wrong.”

Now both the authoritarian and the consequentialist will normally agree with this. But the ‘why’ to them couldn’t be any more different.

To an authoritarian ‘murder is wrong’ because the authority has deemed it so. That authority can be anything that the anthoritian has personally chosen; God, the government, their parents ect. It’s completely arbitrary and subject to change on a whim. The authoritarian lacks consistency and conviction and will often have multiple chosen authorities that will contradict one another. If one of those authorities came out in favor of murder then there’s a strong chance that the authoritarian will change their position or belief as oppose to denouncing their chosen leader.

Meanwhile, ‘murder is wrong’ to the consequentialist because there are clear irreversibly bad consequences for doing it. It removes a life from the world. All possibilities for that person are now forever snuffed out. It hurts those left behind. ect. The consequentialist is consistent in their beliefs so long as the consequence remains the same. They can’t be swayed by mere orders. That’s not to say that consequentialism is incorruptible. A consequentialist can easily become a knight templar if they are forced to weigh consequences against each other. Then it becomes ‘murder is still wrong unless it achieves this arbitrary goal’.

In truth, morality is a sliding scale for most people and you normally hold more than one ethical belief system. However history has proven that authoritarianism is the more often dangerous and corruptible philosophy as it relies heavily on peer pressure, groupthink, and yes, abuse. Most authortians don't come from healthy loving homes. Either they were abused or are abusers themselves. When conducting studies on authoritarianism psychologists and sociologists use questions about parenting in order to pinpoint who is and isn’t an authoritarian as most people aren’t going to just come right out and claim we should go back to feudalism and the divine right of kings.

An out of control authoritarian is a bully with power. An out of control consequentialist is just a vigilante.

Frederic and Varian are the representatives of the two sides of these opposing belief systems and the representatives of what happens when people with those belief systems become corrupt. By having the main character choose between the two of them and siding with the her father, the authoritarian, the show is now validating this philosophy.

Breaking an unjust law shouldn’t be presented as a bad thing here. Blindly accepting Frederic’s rule shouldn’t be the end result of all this. Excusing his abusive behavior shouldn’t be the finale outcome of the story. There’s not a single thing that Frederic, and by extension Rapunzel, does that hasn’t been done by corrupt governments in the real world. Their reasons for doing so be damned.

Given the current political landscape and the increasing push to give real life anthortirans more power, this was absolutely the wrong message to put into a children’s show. It’s not that children will grow up to become authoritarians themselves by just watching the show, but it can condition them to go along with authoritarian abuse if they are now familiar the excuses abusers use to validate their actions. Especially, if they are already trapped in an abusive environment and are being fed these excuses by their current abusers.

I've already seen this toxic thought process played out by younger members of the fandom who are only just now forming their moral codes. “Accept what’ve you’ve been given.” “It’s okay, your parent (the authority) loves you and knows what’s best” “Hurting people is alright because they’ve been hurt you need to ofter up understanding”

NO!

Theses aren’t good lessons. These are the lies fed to you by abusive people. And the show repeatedly validates, justifies, and excuses both abuse and political corruption. Whether the creators believe this philosophy or not, they just approved of it anyways through their own incompetence.

Varian has Every Reason to Not Trust Rapunzel

This the third time in three months that Rapunzel has backed out of helping him. All for increasingly flimsy reasons. She’s making a lot of promises here but not offering up any concrete solutions. Remember she’s not ready to confront her father yet, and neither of them know that she’s the sundrop herself. So what is her plan here? How is she suppose to recuse Quirin and prevent Varian from being unjustly punished if she can’t stand up to the one person who is responsible for causing these problems in the first place.

Can you really blame Varian for going through with what he does here given how she has treated him thus far and would most likely continue to treat him? Yet that’s precisely what the show wants you to do because ‘stealing is wrong’ even though in this case it actually isn’t.

This is Out of Character

Once again, both Cass and Eugene have no reason within the current narrative to be so hostile towards Varian, yet. They’re only doing so now to create bias in the viewer. For Eugene this is especially out of character. I mean we’ve already seen Cass place her ambitions of above others people’s needs both before and after this, but Eugene is constantly written as the heart of the show. He’s suppose to be the most empathetic and caring person in the group, and yet here he is trying to arrest an orphan who’s only stealing to survive. Sound familiar? He of all people should be the first to defend Varian not attack him.

Excuse You, Raps!

You know very well what he is. He’s a child. A lost, lonely, grieving, and desperate child who’s been let down by everyone who is responsible for him including yourself. But far be it for the show to actually point this out by stating it plainly and show you for the self centered ass you really are.

Scenes Like This are Why Varian Should Have Been the Deuteragonist

His story maybe connected to Rapunzel’s but it doesn’t revolve around her. He has his own stakes and conflicts that happen to intersect or oppose with Raps given whatever point in the narrative we’re at. As such we gets scenes like this one in his lab where he is the sole focus and is pushing the story forward. No other character actually gets this.

Eugene’s arc has little to no bearing on the overall plot and Cassandra’s solo scenes in season three do nothing to further push the story nor give new insights into her character, as her given goal and motivation is too dependent upon Rapunzel herself to be shown separately.

Out of all the main characters, Varian’s conflict is the only one that holds enough tension to maintain a separate story line. He needs this focus in order to make sense of what's going on with the larger picture and to resolve his conflict in a satisfying manner. Had the the creators been smart enough to follow through with Varian’s story till the end instead of dumping it at the last minute in season two and hastily rewriting a half-arsed resolution it in season three, then we’ve could have gotten the Disney equivalent of a Zuko vs. Aang, Loki vs Thor, or even Duck vs Rue/Fakir arc. As is, we’re only left with the table scraps of several loosely connected stories none of which are very satisfying to watch.

Conclusion

I still like this episode and Varian’s arc overall but I can't in good conscience call it well written knowing now where it all leads to. Nor can I in could good conscience recommend the show knowing the awful morals it touts. And that makes me angry. Angry that I was fooled into thinking that this show had depth and maturity. Angry that I ever once held this show up as being good. Angry that I invested myself into believing that this show would finally give me a decent Disney anti-villain that I could like. Angry that trusted the creators not to be raging arseholes who made poor creative decisions based off of ego and questionable ethics...

I started this marathon so that I could vent my feelings and gain some closure, while also opening up a frank discussion about how bad creative decisions can lead to bad lessons in children's media. This show has many of the same problems as a lot of current tv series do but all condensed down into one place and there are things to be learn from that.However after this series of reviews are over I doubt I’ll ever watch the show again. It’s honestly not worth the time.

#varian #rapunzel #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #review #character analysis

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